






f 








DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


BY JEAN WEBSTER 


When Patty Went To Col- 
lege 

The Wheat Princess 
Jerry Junior 
The Four-Pools Mystery 
Much Ado About Peter 
Just Patty 
Daddy-Long-Legs 




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XJX, 


Copyright, 1912, by 

The Century Co. 


Copyright, 1912, by 
The Cuktis Publishing Company 


Published October, 1912 




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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 






























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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


“ BLUE WEDNESDAY ” 

HE first Wednesday in every month 



1 was a Perfectly Awful Day — a day 
to be awaited with dread, endured with 
courage and forgotten with haste. Every 
floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, 
and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety- 
seven squirming little orphans must be 
scrubbed and combed and buttoned into 
freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety- 
seven reminded of their manners, and told 
to say, “ Yes, sir,” “ No, sir,” whenever a 
Trustee spoke. 

It was a distressing time ; and poor 
Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, 
had to bear the brunt of it. But this par- 
ticular first Wednesday, like its predeces* 


3 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


sors, finally dragged itself to a close. 
Jerusfia escaped from the pantry where she 
had been making sandwiches for the 
asylum’s guests, and turned upstairs to ac- 
complish her regular work. Her special 
care was room F, where eleven little tots, 
from four to seven, occupied eleven little 
cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her 
charges, straightened their rumpled frocks, 
wiped their noses, and started them in an 
orderly and willing line toward the dining- 
room to engage themselves for a blessed 
half hour with bread and milk and prune 
pudding. 

Then she dropped down on the window 
seat and leaned throbbing temples against 
the cool glass. She had been on her feet 
since five that morning, doing everybody’s 
bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous 
matron. Mrs. Lippett, behind the scenes, 
did not always maintain that calm and 
pompous dignity with which she faced an 
4 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


audience of Trustees and lady visitors-, 
Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch 
of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling 
that marked the confines of the asylum, 
down undulating ridges sprinkled with 
country estates, to the spires of the village 
rising from the midst of bare trees. 

The day was ended — quite successfully, 
so far as she knew. The Trustees and the 
visiting committee had made their rounds, 
and read their reports, and drunk their tea, 
and now were hurrying home to their own 
cheerful firesides, to forget their bother- 
some little charges for another month. 
Jerusha leaned forward watching with 
curiosity — and a touch of wistfulness — 
the stream of carriages and automobiles 
that rolled out of the asylum gates. In im- 
agination she followed first one equipage 
then another to the big houses dotted along 
the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur 
coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers 
5 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly- 
murmuring “ Home ” to the driver. But 
on the door-sill of her home the picture 
grew blurred. 

Jerusha had an imagination — an im- 
agination, Mrs. Lippett told her, that would 
get her into trouble if she did n’t take care 
— but keen as it was, it could not carry 
her beyond the front porch of the houses 
she would enter. Poor, eager, adventurous 
little Jerusha, in all her seventeen years, 
had never stepped inside an ordinary house ; 
she could not picture the daily routine of 
those other human beings who carried on 
their lives undiscommoded by orphans. 

Je-ru-sha Ab-bott 
You are wan-ted 
In the of-fice, 

And I think you ’d 
Better hurry up! 

Tommy Dillon who had joined the 
choir, came singing up the stairs and down 
6 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


the corridor, his chant growing louder as 
he approached room F. Jerusha wrenched 
herself from the window and re faced the 
troubles of life. 

“Who wants me?” she cut into 
Tommy’s chant with a note of sharp anx- 
iety. 

Mrs. Lippett in the office. 

And I think she ’s mad. 

Ah-a-men ! 

Tommy piously intoned, but his accent 
was not entirely malicious. Even the most 
hardened little orphan felt sympathy for an 
erring sister who was summoned to the 
office to face an annoyed matron ; and 
Tommy liked Jerusha even if she did some- 
times jerk him by the arm and nearly scrub 
his nose off. 

Jerusha went without comment, but with 
two parallel lines on her brow. What 
could have gone wrong, she wondered. 
Were the sandwiches not thin enough? 
Were there shells in the nut cakes? Had 
7 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


a lady visitor seen the hole in Susie Haw- 
thorn's stocking? Had — O horrors! — 
one of the cherubic little babes , in her own 
room F “ sassed ” a Trustee? 

The long lower hall had not been lighted, 
and as she came downstairs, a last Trustee 
stood, on the point of departure, in the open 
door that led to the porte-cochere. Jerusha 
caught only a fleeting impression of the 
man — and the impression consisted en- 
tirely of tallness. He was waving his arm 
toward an automobile waiting in the 
curved drive. As it sprang into motion 
and approached, head on for an instant, the 
glaring headlights threw his shadow 
sharply against the wall inside. The 
shadow pictured grotesquely elongated legs 
and arms that ran along the floor and up 
the wall of the corridor. It looked, for all 
the world, like a huge, wavering daddy - 
long-legs. 

Jerusha’ s anxious frown gave place to 
quick laughter. She was by nature a sunny 
8 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


soul, and had always snatched the tiniest 
excuse to be amused. If one could derive 
any sort of entertainment out of the op- 
pressive fact of a Trustee, it was something 
unexpected to the good. She advanced to 
the office quite cheered by the tiny episode, 
and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lip- 
pett. To her surprise the matron was also, 
if not exactly smiling, at least appreciably 
affable; she wore an expression almost as 
pleasant as the one she donned for visitors. 

“ Sit down, Jerusha, I have something 
to say to you.” 

Jerusha dropped into the nearest chair 
and waited with a touch of breathlessness. 
An automobile flashed past the window; 
Mrs. Lippett glanced after it. 

“ Did you notice the gentleman who has 
just gone? ” 

“ I saw his back.” 

“ He is one of our most affluenttal 
Trustees, and has given large sums of 
money toward the asylum’s support. I am 
9 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


not at liberty to mention his name; he ex- 
pressly stipulated that he was to remain un- 
known.” 

Jerusha’s eyes widened slightly; she was 
not accustomed to being summoned to the 
office to discuss the eccentricities of Trustees 
with the matron. 

“ This gentleman has taken an interest 
in several of our boys. You remember 
Charles Benton and Henry Freize? They 
were both sent through college by Mr. 
— er — this Trustee, and both have repaid 
with hard work and success the money that 
was so generously expended. Other pay- 
ment the gentleman does not wish. Here- 
tofore his philanthropies have been directed 
solely toward the boys; I have never been 
able to interest him in the slightest degree 
in any of the girls in the institution, no 
matter how deserving. He does not, I 
may tell you, care for girls.” 

“ No, ma’am,” Jerusha murmured, since 
io 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

some reply seemed to be expected at this 
point. 

“ To-day at the regular meeting, the 
question of your future was brought up.” 

Mrs. Lippett allowed a moment of silence 
to fall, then resumed in a slow, placid man- 
ner extremely trying to her hearer’s sud- 
denly tightened nerves. 

“ Usually, as you know, the children are 
not kept after they are sixteen, but an ex- 
ception was made in your case. You had 
finished our school at fourteen, and having 
done so well in your studies — not always, 
I must say, in your conduct — it was de- 
termined to let you go on in the village 
high school. Now you are finishing that, 
and of course the asylum cannot be re- 
sponsible any longer for your support. As 
it is, you have had two years more than 
most.” 

Mrs. Lippett overlooked the fact that 
Jerusha had worked hard for her board 


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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


during those two years, that the conven- 
ience of the asylum had come first and her 
education second ; that on days like the 
present she was kept at home to scrub. 

“ As I say, the question of your future 
was brought up and your record was dis- 
cussed — thoroughly discussed.” 

Mrs. Lippett brought accusing eyes to 
bear upon the prisoner in the dock, and the 
prisoner looked guilty because it seemed to 
be expected — not because she could re- 
member any strikingly black pages in her 
record. 

“ Of course the usual disposition of one 
in your place would be to put you in a 
position where you could begin to work, 
but you have done well in school in certain 
branches ; it seems that your work in English 
has even been brilliant. Miss Pritchard 
who is on our visiting committee is also on 
the school board ; she has been talking with 
your rhetoric teacher, and made a speech 
in your favor. She also read aloud an 


12 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


essay that you had written entitled, ‘ Blue 
Wednesday.’ ” 

Jerusha’s guilty expression this time was 
not assumed. 

“ It seemed to me that you showed little 
gratitude in holding up to ridicule the insti- 
tution that has done so much for you. 
Had you not managed to be funny I doubt 
if you would have been forgiven. But 

fortunately for you, Mr. , that is, 

the gentleman who has just gone — 
appears to have an immoderate sense of 
humor. On the strength of that imper- 
tinent paper, he has offered to send you to 
college.” 

“ To college? ” Jerusha’s eyes grew big. 

Mrs. Lippett nodded. 

“ He waited to discuss the terms with me. 
They are unusual. The gentleman, I may 
say, is erratic. He believes that you have 
originality, and he is planning to educate 
you to become a writer.” 

“A writer?” Jerusha’s mind was 
13 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


numbed. She could only repeat Mrs. Lip- 
pett’s words. 

“ That is his wish. Whether anything 
will come of it, the future will show. He 
is giving you a very liberal allowance, al- 
most, for a girl who has never had any ex- 
perience in taking care of money, too lib- 
eral. But he planned the matter in detail, 
and I did not feel free to make any sug- 
gestions. You are to remain here through 
the summer, and Miss Pritchard has kindly 
offered to superintend your outfit. Your 
board and tuition will be paid directly to 
the college, and you will receive in addition 
during the four years you are there, an 
allowance of thirty-five dollars a month. 
This will enable you to enter on the same 
standing as the other students. The money 
will be sent to you by the gentleman’s 
private secretary once a month, and in re- 
turn, you will write a letter of acknowl- 
edgment once a month. That is — you are 
not to thank him for the money; he doesn’t 
14 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

care to have that mentioned, but you are 
to write a letter telling of the progress in 
your studies and the details of your daily 
life. Just such a letter as you would write 
to your parents if they were living. 

“ These letters will be addressed to Mr. 
John Smith and will be sent in care of ;he 
secretary. The gentleman’s name is not 
John Smith, but he prefers to remain un- 
known. To you he will never be anything 
but John Smith. His reason in requiring 
the letters is that he thinks nothing so fos- 
ters facility in literary expression as letter- 
writing. Since you have no family with 
whom to correspond, he desires you to write 
in this way; also, he wishes to keep track 
of your progress. He will never answer 
your letters, nor in the slightest particular 
take any notice of them. He detests let- 
ter-writing, and does not wish you to be- 
come a burden. If any point should ever 
arise where an answer would seem to be 
imperative — such as in the event of your 
15 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


being expelled, which I trust will not occur 
— you may correspond with Mr. Griggs, 
his secretary. These monthly letters are 
absolutely obligatory on your part ; they 
are the only payment that Mr. Smith re- 
quires, so you must be as punctilious in send- 
ing them as though it were a bill that you 
were paying. I hope that they will always 
be respectful in tone and will reflect credit 
on your training. You must remember 
that you are writing to a Trustee of the 
John Grier Home.” 

Jerusha’s eyes longingly sought the 
door. Her head was in a whirl of ex- 
citement, and she wished only to escape 
from Mrs. Lippett’s platitudes, and think. 
She rose and took a tentative step back- 
wards. Mrs. Lippett detained her with a 
gesture; it was an oratorical opportunity 
not to be slighted. 

“ I trust that you are properly grateful 
for this very rare good fortune that has 
befallen you? Not many girls in your posi- 
16 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


tion ever have such an opportunity to rise 
in the world. You must always remem- 
ber—” 

“I — yes, ma’am, thank you. I think, 
if that ’s all, I must go and sew a patch on 
Freddie Perkins’s trousers.” 

The door closed behind her, and Mrs. 
Lippett watched it with dropped jaw, her 
peroration in mid-air. 


4 


17 



THE LETTERS OF MISS JERUSHA 
ABBOTT 

to 

MR. DADDY-LONG-LEGS SMITH 



215 Fergussen Hall, 

September 24th. 

Dear Kind-Trustee-Who-Sends-Orphans-to- 

College , 

Here I am ! I traveled yesterday for 
four hours in a train. It ’s a funny sensa- 
tion is n’t it? I never rode in one before. 

College is the biggest, most bewildering 
place — I get lost whenever I leave my 
room. I will write you a description later 
when I ’m feeling less muddled ; also I will 
tell you about my lessons. Classes don’t 
begin until Monday morning, and this is 
Saturday night. But I wanted to write a 
letter first just to get acquainted. 

It seems queer to be writing letters to 
somebody you don’t know. It seems queer 


21 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


for me to be writing letters at all — I ’ve 
never written more than three or four in 
my life, so please overlook it if these are 
not a model kind. 

Before leaving yesterday morning, Mrs. 
Lippett and I had a very serious talk. She 
told me how to behave all the rest of my 
life, and especially how to behave toward 
the kind gentleman who is doing so much 
for me. I must take care to be Very Re- 
spectful. 

But how can one be very respectful to a 
person who wishes to be called John 
Smith ? Why could n’t you have picked 
out a name with a little personality? I 
might as well write letters to Dear Hitch- 
ing-Post or Dear Clothes-Pole. 

I have been thinking about you a great 
deal this summer; having somebody take 
an interest in me after all these years, makes 
me feel as though I had found a sort of 
family. It seems as though I belonged to 
22 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


somebody now, and it ’s a very comforta- 
ble sensation. I must say, however, that 
when I think about you, my imagination 
has very little to work upon. There are 
just three things that I know: 

I. You are tall. 

II. You are rich. 

III. You hate girls. 

I suppose I might call you Dear Mr. Girl- 
Hater. Only that ’s sort of insulting to 
me. Or Dear Mr. Rich-Man, but that ’s 
insulting to you, as though money were 
the only important thing about you. Be- 
sides, being rich is such a very external 
quality. Maybe you won’t stay rich all 
your life; lots of very clever men get 
smashed up in Wall Street. But at least 
you will stay tall all your life! So I’ve 
decided to call you Dear Daddy-Long- 
Legs. I hope you won’t mind. It ’s just 
a private pet name — we won’t tell Mrs. 
Lippett. 


23 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


The ten o’clock bell is going to ring in 
two minutes. Our day is divided into 
sections by bells. We eat and sleep and 
study by bells. It ’s very enlivening ; I feel 
like a fire horse all of the time. There it 
goes ! Lights out. Good night. 

Observe with what precision I obey rules 
— due to my training in the John Grier 
Home. 

Yours most respectfully, 

Jerusha Abbott. 

To Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith. 


24 


& 


October ist. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I love college and I love you for send- 
ing me — I’m very, very happy, and so 
excited every moment of the time that I 
can scarcely sleep. You can’t imagine how 
different it is from the John Grier Home. 
I never dreamed there was such a place in 
the world. I ’m feeling sorry for every- 
body who is n’t a girl and who can’t come 
here; I am sure the college you attended 
when you were a boy couldn’t have been 
so nice. 

My room is up in a tower that used to 
be the contagious ward before they built 
the new infirmary. There are three other 
girls on the same floor of the tower — a 
Senior who wears spectacles and is always 
asking us please to be a little more quiet, 

25 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and two Freshmen named Sallie McBride 
and jv. R 'VUr.' Pendleton. Sallie has 
red hair and a turn-up nose and is quite 
friendly; Julia comes from one of the first 
families in New York and has n’t noticed 
me yet. They room together and the 
Senior and I have singles. Usually Fresh- 
men can’t get singles; they are very scarce, 
but I got one without even asking. I sup- 
pose the registrar did n’t think it would be 
right to ask a properly brought-up girl to 
room with a foundling. You see there are 
advantages ! 

My room is on the northwest corner with 
two windows and a view. After you ’ve 
lived in a ward for eighteen years with 
twenty room-mates, it is restful to be 
alone. This is the first chance I ’ve ever 
had to get acquainted with Jerusha Abbott. 
I think I ’m going to like her. 

Do you think you are? 


26 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Tuesday. 

They are organizing the Freshman 
basket-ball team and there ’s just a chance 
that I shall make it. I ’m little of course, 
but terribly quick and wiry and tough. 
While the others are hopping about in the 
air, I can dodge under their feet and grab 
the ball. It’s loads of fun practising — 
out in the athletic field in the afternoon 
with the trees all red and yellow and the 
air full of the smell of burning leaves, and 
everybody laughing and shouting. These 
are the happiest girls I ever saw — and I 
am the happiest of all ! 

I meant to write a long letter and tell 
you all the things I ’m learning (Mrs. Lip- 
pett said you wanted to know) but 7th 
hour has just rung, and in ten minutes I ’m 
due at the athletic field in gymnasium 
clothes. Don’t you hope I ’ll make the 
team? 

Yours always, 

Jerusha Abbott. 

27 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


P. S. (9 o’clock.) 

Sallie McBride just poked her head in 
at my door. This is what she said : 

“ I ’m so homesick that I simply can’t 
stand it. Do you feel that way ? ” 

I smiled a little and said no, I thought 
I could pull through. At least homesick- 
ness is one disease that I ’ve escaped ! I 
never heard of anybody being asylumsick, 
did you? 


28 


October loth. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Did you ever hear of Michael Angelo? 

He was a famous artist who lived in 
Italy in the Middle Ages. Everybody in 
English Literature seemed to know about 
him and the whole class laughed because I 
thought he was an archangel. He sounds 
like an archangel, does n’t he ? The trouble 
with college is that you are expected to know 
such a lot of things you ’ve never learned. 
It ’s very embarrassing at times. But now, 
when the girls talk about things that I never 
heard of, I just keep still and look them up 
in the encyclopedia. 

I made an awful mistake the first day. 
Somebody mentioned Maurice Maeterlinck, 
and I asked if she was a Freshman. That 


29 


D ADD Y-LON G-LEGS 


joke has gone all over college. But any- 
way, I ’m just as bright in class as any of 
the others — and brighter than some of 
them! 

Do you care to know how I ’ve fur- 
nished my room? It’s a symphony in 
brown and yellow. The wall was tinted 
buff, and I Ve bought yellow denim cur- 
tains and cushions and a mahogany desk 
(second hand for three dollars) and a 
rattan chair and a brown rug with an ink 
spot in the middle. I stand the chair over 
the spot. 

The windows are up high ; you can’t look 
out from an ordinary seat. But I un- 
screwed the looking-glass from the back 
of the bureau, upholstered the top, and 
moved it up against the window. It ’s just 
the right height for a window seat. You 
pull out the drawers like steps and walk 
up. Very comfortable! 

Sallie McBride helped me choose the 
things at the Senior auction. She has lived 
30 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


in a house all her life and knows about 
furnishing. You can’t imagine what fun 
it is to shop and pay with a real five-dollar 
bill and get some change — when you ’ve 
never had more than a nickel in your life. 
I assure you, Daddy dear, I do appreciate 
that allowance. 

Sallie is the most entertaining person in 
the world — and Julia Rutledge Pendleton 
the least so. It ’s queer what a mixture 
the registrar can make in the matter of 
room-mates. Sallie thinks everything is 
funny — even flunking — and Julia is 
bored at everything. She never makes the 
slightest effort to be amiable. She believes 
that if you are a Pendleton, that fact alone 
admits you to heaven without any further 
examination. Julia and I were born to be 
enemies. 

And now I suppose you Ve been waiting 
very impatiently to hear what I am learning? 

I. Latin : Second Punic war. Hanni- 
bal and his forces pitched camp at Lake 
3i 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Trasimenus last night. They prepared an 
ambuscade for the Romans, and a battle 
took place at the fourth watch this morn- 
ing. Romans in retreat. 

II. French: 24 pages of the “Three 
Musketeers ” and third conjugation, ir- 
regular verbs. 

III. Geometry: Finished cylinders; now 
doing cones. 

IV. English: Studying exposition. My 
style improves daily in clearness and brev- 
ity. 

V. Physiology: Reached the digestive 
system. Bile and the pancreas next time. 
Yours, on the way to being educated, 

Jerusha Abbott. 

P. S. I hope you never touch alcohol. 
Daddy ? 

It does dreadful things to your liver. 


32 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Wednesday 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I Ve changed my name. 

I ’m still “ Jerusha ” in the catalogue, 
but I ’m “ Judy ” every place else. It ’s 
sort of too bad, is n’t it, to have to give 
yourself the only pet name you ever had? 
I did n’t quite make up the Judy though. 
That ’s what Freddie Perkins used to call 
me before he could talk plain. 

I wish Mrs. Lippett would use a little 
more ingenuity about choosing babies’ 
names. She gets the last names out of the 
telephone book — you ’ll find Abbott on 
the first page — and she picks the Christian 
names up anywhere; she got Jerusha from 
a tombstone. I ’ve always hated it ; but I 
rather like Judy. It ’s such a silly name. 
It belongs to the kind of girl I ’m not — 
a sweet little blue-eyed thing, petted and 
spoiled by all the family, who romps her 
way through life without any cares. 
Would n’t it be nice to be like that ? What- 


3 


33 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ever faults I may have, no one can ever 
accuse me of having been spoiled by my 
family ! But it ’s sort of fun to pretend 
I ’ve been. In the future please always ad- 
dress me as Judy. 

Do you want to know something? I 
have three pairs of kid gloves. I ’ve had 
kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, 
but never real kid gloves with five fingers. 
I take them out and try them on every 
little while. It ’s all I can do not to wear 
them to classes. 

(Dinner bell. Good-by.) 


Friday. 

What do you think, Daddy ? The 
English instructor said that my last paper 
shows an unusual amount of originality. 
She did, truly. Those were her words. It 
does n’t seem possible, does it, considering 
the eighteen years of training that I ’ve 
had? The aim of the John Grier Home 


34 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

(as you doubtless know and heartily ap- 
prove of) is to turn the ninety-seven or- 
phans into ninety-seven twins. 

The unusual artistic ability which I ex- 
hibit, was developed at an early age through 

ANY ORPHAN 


Rear Efevdliton Front Elev<et(on 



35 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


drawing chalk pictures of Mrs. Lippett on 
the woodshed door. 

I hope that I don’t hurt your feelings 
when I criticize the home of my youth? 
But you have the upper hand, you know, 
for if I become too impertinent, you can 
always stop payment on your checks. That 
is n’t a very polite thing to say — but you 
can’t expect me to have any manners; a 
foundling asylum is n’t a young ladies’ fin- 
ishing school. 

You know, Daddy, it is n’t the work that 
is going to be hard in college. It ’s the 
play. Half the time I don’t know what the 
girls are talking about; their jokes seem 
to relate to a past that every one but me 
.has shared. I’m a foreigner in the 
world and I don’t understand the language. 
It ’s a miserable feeling. I ’ve had it all 
my life. At the high school the girls 
would stand in groups and just look at me. 
I was queer and different and everybody 
knew it. I could feel “ John Grier Home ” 
36 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

written on my face. And then a few char- 
itable ones would make a point of coming 
up and saying something polite. I hated 
every one of them — the charitable ones 
most of all. 

Nobody here knows that I was brought 
up in an asylum. I told Sallie McBride 
that my mother and father were dead, and 
that a kind old gentleman was sending me 
to college — which is entirely true so far 
as it goes. I don’t want you to think I 
am a coward, but I do want to be like the 
other girls, and that Dreadful Home loom- 
ing over my childhood is the one great 
big difference. If I can turn my back on 
that and shut out the remembrance, I think 
I might be just as desirable as any other 
girl. I don’t believe there ’s any real, un- 
derneath difference, do you? 

Anyway, Sallie McBride likes me! 

Yours ever, 

Judy Abbott. 

(Nee Jerusha.) 


37 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Saturday morning. 

I ’ve just been reading this letter over 
and it sounds pretty un-cheer ful. But 
can’t you guess that I have a special topic 
due Monday morning and a review in 
geometry and a very sneezy cold? 

Sunday. 

I forgot to mail this yesterday so I will 
add an indignant postscript. We had a 
bishop this morning, and what do you think 
he said f 

“ The most beneficent promise made us in 
the Bible is this, ‘ The poor ye have always 
with you.’ They were put here in order to 
keep us charitable.” 

The poor, please observe, being a sort of 
useful domestic animal. If I had n’t grown 
into such a perfect lady, I should have gone 
up after service and told him what I thought. 


38 


October 25th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

I Ve made the basket-ball team and you 
ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. 
It ’s blue and mahogany with little streaks 
of orange. Julia Pendleton tried for the 
team, but she did n’t make it. Hooray ! 

You see what a mean disposition I have. 

College gets nicer and nicer. I like the 
girls and the teachers and the classes and 
the campus and the things to eat. We have 
ice-cream twice a week and we never have 
corn-meal mush. 

You only wanted to hear from me once 
a month, did n’t you? And I ’ve been pep- 
pering you with letters every few days! 
But I ’ve been so excited about all these 
new adventures that I must talk to some- 
body ; and you ’re the only one I know. 

39 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Please excuse my exuberance ; I ’ll settle 
pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you 
can always toss them into the waste-basket. 
I promise not to write another till the mid- 
dle of November. 

Yours most loquaciously, 

Judy Abbott. 



40 


November 15th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Listen to what I Ve learned to-day : 

The area of the convex surface of the 
frustum of a regular pyramid is half the 
product of the sum of the perimeters of 
its bases by the altitude of either of its 
trapezoids. 

It does n’t sound true, but it is — I 
can prove it ! 

You ’ve never heard about my clothes, 
have you, Daddy? Six dresses,, all new 
and beautiful and bought for me — not 
handed down from somebody bigger. 
Perhaps you don’t realize what a climax 
that marks in the career of an orphan? 
You gave them to me, and I am very, very, 
very much obliged. It ’s a fine thing to be * 
4i 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


educated — but nothing compared to the diz- 
zying experience of owning six new 
dresses. Miss Pritchard who is on the 
visiting committee picked them out — not 
Mrs. Lippett, thank goodness. I have an 
evening dress, pink mull over silk (I’m 
perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue 
church dress, and a dinner dress of red 
veiling with Oriental trimming (makes me 
look like a Gipsy) and another of rose- 
colored challis, and a gray street suit, and 
an every-day dress for classes. That 
would n’t be an awfully big wardrobe for 
Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for 
Jerusha Abbott — Oh, my! 

I suppose you ’re thinking now what a 
frivolous, shallow, little beast she is, and 
what a waste of money to educate a 
girl ? 

But Daddy, if you ’d been dressed in 
checked ginghams all your life, you’d ap- 
preciate how I feel. And when I started 
to the high school, I entered upon another 
42 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


period even worse than the checked ging- 
hams. 

The poor box. 

You can’t know how I dreaded appearing 
in school in those miserable poor-box 
dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put 
down in class next to the girl who first 
owned my dress, and she would whisper 
and giggle and point it out to the others. 
The bitterness of wearing your enemies’ 
cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I 
wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, 
I don’t believe I could obliterate the scar. 

LATEST WAR BULLETIN! 

News from the Scene of Action. 

At the fourth watch on Thursday the 
13th of November, Hannibal routed the ad- 
vance guard of the Romans and led the Car- 
thaginian forces over the mountains into the 
plains of Casilinum. A cohort of light 
armed Numidians engaged the infantry of 
Quintus Fabius Maximus. Two battles 
43 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and light skirmishing. Romans repulsed 
with heavy losses. 

I have the honor of being, 

Your special correspondent from the 
front 

J. Abbott. 

P. S. I know I ’m not to expect any let- 
ters in return, and I Ve been warned not 
to bother you with questions, but tell me, 
Daddy, just this once — are you awfully 
old or just a little old? And are you per* 
fectly bald or just a little bald? It is very 
difficult thinking about you in the abstract 
like a theorem in geometry. 

Given a tall rich man who hates girls, 
but is very generous to one quite imperti- 
nent girl, what does he look like? 

R.S.V.P. 


44 


December 19th. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

You never answered my question and it 
was very important. 

ARE YOU BALD? 

I have it planned exact- 
ly what you look like — 
very satisfactorily — un- 
til I reach the top of 
your head, and then I am 
stuck. I can’t decide 
whether you have white 
hair or black hair or sort 
of sprinkly gray hair or 
maybe none at all. 

Here is your portrait : 

But the problem is, 
shall I add some hair? 

Would you like to 
45 



DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


know what color your eyes are ? They 're 
gray, and your eyebrows stick out like 
a porch roof (beetling, they’re called 
in novels) and your mouth is a straight 
line with a tendency to turn down at the 
corners. Oh, you see, I know! You’re a 
snappy old thing with a temper. 

(Chapel bell.) 

9-45 p - m. 

I have a new unbreakable rule: never, 
never to study at night no matter how 
many written reviews are coming in the 
morning. Instead, I read just plain 
books — I have to, you know, because there 
are eighteen blank years behind me. You 
would n’t believe, Daddy, what an abyss 
of ignorance my mind is; I am just realiz- 
ing the depths myself. The things that 
most girls with a properly assorted family 
and a home and friends and a library know 
by absorption, I have never heard of. For 
example : 

I never read “ Mother Goose ” or 
46 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


“ David Copperfield ’’ or “ Ivanhoe ’’ or 
“ Cinderella " or “ Blue Beard ” or “ Rob- 
inson Crusoe ” or “ Jane Eyre " or “ Alice 
in Wonderland " or a word of Rudyard 
Kipling. I didn't know that Henry the 
Eighth was married more than once or that 
Shelley was a poet. I did n't know that 
people used to be monkeys and that the 
Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I 
did n’t know that R.L.S. stood for Robert 
Louis Stevenson or that George Eliot was 
a lady. I had never seen a picture of 
the “ Mona Lisa" and (it’s true but you 
won’t believe it) I had never heard of 
Sherlock Holmes. 

Now, I know all of these things and a 
lot of others besides, but you can see how 
much I need to catch up. And oh, but 
it ’s fun ! I look forward all day to even- 
ing, and then I put an “ engaged ’’ on the 
door and get into my nice red bath robe 
and furry slippers and pile all the cushions 
behind me on the couch and light the brass 
47 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


student lamp at my elbow, and read and 
read and read. One book is n’t enough. 
I have four going at once. Just now, 
they’re Tennyson’s poems and “Vanity 
Fair ” and Kipling’s “ Plain Tales ” and 
— don’t laugh — “ Little Women.” I find 
that I am the only girl in college who 
was n’t brought up on “ Little Women.” 
I haven’t told anybody though (that would 
stamp me as queer). I just quietly went 
and bought it with $1.12 of my last month’s 
allowance ; and the next time somebody 
mentions pickled limes, I ’ll know what she 
is talking about! 

(Ten o’clock bell. This is a very in- 
terrupted letter.) 


Saturday. 

Sir , 

I have the honor to report fresh explora- 
tions in the field of geometry. On Friday 
last we abandoned our former works in 
parallelopipeds and proceeded to truncated 
48 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


prisms. We are finding the road rough 
and very uphill. 


Sunday. 

The Christmas holidays begin next week 
and the trunks are up. The corridors are so 
cluttered that you can hardly get through, 
and everybody is so bubbling over with 
excitement that studying is getting left out. 
I ’m going to have a beautiful time in vaca- 
tion; there’s another Freshman who lives 
in Texas staying behind, and we are 
planning to take long walks and — if 
there ’s any ice — learn to skate. Then 
there is still the whole library to be read 
— and three empty weeks to do it in ! 

Good-by, Daddy, I hope that you are 
feeling as happy as I am. 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 

P. S. Don’t forget to answer my ques- 
tion. If you don’t want the trouble of 
4 49 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

writing, have your secretary telegraph. 
He can just say : 

Mr. Smith is quite bald, 
or 

Mr. Smith is not bald, 
or 

Mr. Smith has white hair. 

And you can deduct the twenty-five 
cents out of my allowance. 

Good-by till January — and a merry 
Christmas ! 


50 


Toward the end of 
the Christmas vacation. 

Exact date unknown. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Is it snowing where you are? All the 
world that I see from my tower is draped 
in white and the flakes are coming down 
as big as pop-corn. It ’s late afternoon 
— the sun is just setting (a cold yellow 
color) behind some colder violet hills, and 
I am up in my window seat using the last 
light to write to you. 

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! 
I ’m not used to receiving Christmas 
presents. You have already given me such 
lots of things — everything I have, you 
know — that I don’t quite feel that I de- 
serve extras. But I like them just the 
5i 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


same. Do you want to know what I 
bought with my money? 

I. A silver watch in a leather case to 
wear on my wrist and get me to recitations 
on time. 

II. Matthew Arnold’s poems. 

III. A hot water bottle. 

IV. A steamer rug. (My tower is 
cold. ) 

V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manu- 
script paper. (I’m going to commence 
being an author pretty soon.) 

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To 
enlarge the author’s vocabulary.) 

VII. (I don’t much like to confess this 
last item, but I will.) A pair of silk stock- 
ings. 

And now, Daddy, never say I don’t tell 
all! 

It was a very low motive, if you must 
know it, that prompted the silk stockings. 
Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do 
52 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


geometry, and she sits cross legged on the 
couch and wears silk stockings every night. 
But just wait — as soon as she gets back 
from vacation I shall go in and sit on her 
couch in my silk stockings. You see, 
Daddy, the miserable creature that I am 

— but at least I ’m honest ; and you knew 
already, from my asylum record, that I 
wasn’t perfect, didn’t you? 

To recapitulate (that’s the way the Eng- 
lish instructor begins every other sentence), 
I am very much obliged for my seven pres- 
ents. I ’m pretending to myself that they 
came in a box from my family in Califor- 
nia. The watch is from father, the rug 
from mother, the hot water bottle from 
grandmother — who is always worrying 
for fear I shall catch cold in this climate 

— and the yellow paper from my little 
brother Harry. My sister Isobel gave me 
the silk stockings, and Aunt Susan the 
Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (lit- 

53 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


tie Harry is named for him) gave me the 
dictionary. He wanted to send chocolates, 
but I insisted on synonyms. 

You don’t object do you, to playing the 
part of a composite family? 

And now, shall I tell you about my vaca- 
tion, or are you only interested in my edu- 
cation as such? I hope you appreciate the 
delicate shade of meaning in “ as such.” 
It is the latest addition to my vocabulary. 

The girl from Texas is named Leonora 
Fenton. (Almost as funny as Jerusha, 
isn’t it?) I like her, but not so much as 
Sallie McBride; I shall never like any one 
so much as Sallie — except you. I must 
always like you the best of all, because 
you ’re my whole family rolled into one. 
Leonora and I and two Sophomores have 
walked ’cross country every pleasant day 
and explored the whole neighborhood, 
dressed in short skirts and knit jackets and 
caps, and carrying shinny sticks to whack 
things with. Once we walked into town 
54 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


— four miles — and stopped at a restaurant 
where the college girls go for dinner. 
Broiled lobster (35 cents) and for dessert, 
buckwheat cakes and maple syrup (15 
cents). Nourishing and cheap. 

It was such a lark! Especially for me, 
because it was so awfully different from 
the asylum — I feel like an escaped con- 
vict every time I leave the campus. Before 
I thought, I started to tell the others what 
an experience I was having. The cat was 
almost out of the bag when I grabbed it; 
by its tail and pulled it back. It ’s awfully 
hard for me not to tell everything I know. 

I ’m a very confiding soul by nature ; if I 
did n’t have you to tell things to, I ’d burst. 

We had a molasses candy pull last Friday 
evening, given by the house matron of Fer- 
gussen to the left-behinds in the other halls. 
There were twenty-two of us altogether, 
Freshmen and Sophomores and Juniors and 
Seniors all united in amicable accord. The 
kitchen is huge, with copper pots and ket- 
55 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ties hanging in rows on the stone wall — 
the littlest casserole among them about the 
size of a wash boiler. Four hundred girls 
live in Fergussen. The chef, in a white 
cap and apron, fetched out twenty-two other 
white caps and aprons — I can’t imagine 
where he got so many — and we all turned 
ourselves into cooks. 

It was great fun, though I have seen 
better candy. When it was finally finished, 
and ourselves and the kitchen and the door- 
knobs all thoroughly sticky, we organized 
a procession and still in our caps and 
aprons, each carrying a big fork or spoon 
or frying pan, we marched through the 
empty corridors to. the officers’ parlor where 
half-a-dozen professors and instructors 
were passing a tranquil evening. We 
serenaded them with college songs and of- 
fered refreshments. They accepted po- 
litely but dubiously. We left them sucking 
chunks of molasses candy, sticky and 
speechless. 


56 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

So you see, Daddy, my education pro- 
gresses ! 



Don’t you really think that I ought to be 
an artist instead of an author? 

Vacation will be over in two days and I 
shall be glad to see the girls again. My 
tower is just a trifle lonely; when nine peo- 
ple occupy a house that was built for four 
hundred, they do rattle around a bit. 

Eleven pages — poor Daddy, you must 
be tired! I meant this to be just a short 
little thank-you note — but when I get 
started I seem to have a ready pen. 

Good-by, and thank you for thinking of 
me — I should be perfectly happy except 
57 



DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


for one little threatening cloud on the hori- 
zon. Examinations come in February. 

Yours with love, 

Judy. 

P. S. Maybe it isn’t proper to send 
love? If it isn’t, please excuse. But I 
must love somebody and there ’s only you 
and Mrs. Lippett to choose between, so you 
see — you ’ll have to put up with it, Daddy 
dear, because I can’t love her. 

On the Eve. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

You should see the way this college is 
studying! We’ve forgotten we ever had 
a vacation. Fifty-seven irregular verbs 
have I introduced to my brain in the past 
four days — I’m only hoping they ’ll stay 
till after examinations. 

Some of the girls sell their text-books 
when they ’re through with them, but I in- 
tend to keep mine. Then after I ’ve grad- 
58 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ttated I shall have my whole education in a 
row in the bookcase, and when I need to 
use any detail, I can turn to it without the 
slightest hesitation. So much easier and 
more accurate than trying to keep it in your 
head. 

Julia Pendleton dropped in this even- 
ing to pay a social call, and stayed a solid 
hour. She got started on the subject of 
family, and I could n't switch her off. She 
wanted to know what my mother’s maiden 
name was — did you ever hear such an im- 
pertinent question to ask of a person from 
a foundling asylum? I didn’t have the 
courage to say I did n’t know, so I just mis- 
erably plumped on the first name I could 
think of, and that was Montgomery. Then 
she wanted to know whether I belonged to 
the Massachusetts Montgomerys or the 
Virginia Montgomerys. 

Her mother was a Rutherford. The 
family came over in the ark, and were con- 
nected by marriage with Henry the VIII. 
59 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


On her father’s side they date back fur- 
ther than Adam. On the topmost branches 
of her family tree there ’s a superior breed 
of monkeys, with very fine silky hair and 
extra long tails. 

I meant to write you a nice, cheerful, en- 
tertaining letter to-night, but I ’m too 
sleepy — and scared. The Freshman’s lot 
is not a happy one. 

Yours, about to be examined, 

Judy Abbott. 

Sunday. 

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I have some awful, awful, awful news to 
tell you, but I won’t begin with it ; I ’ll try 
to get you in a good humor first. 

Jerusha Abbott has commenced to be 
an author. A poem entitled, “ From my 
Tower,” appears in the February Monthly 
— on the first page, which is a very great 
honor for a Freshman. My English in- 
60 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


structor stopped me on the way out from 
chapel last night, and said it was a charm- 
ing piece of work except for the sixth line, 
which had too many feet. I will send you 
a copy in case you care to read it. 

Let me see if I can’t think of something 
else pleasant — Oh, yes ! I ’m learning to 
skate, and can glide about quite respectably 
all by myself. Also I Ve learned how to 
slide down a rope from the roof of the 
gymnasium, and I can vault a bar three 
feet and six inches high — I hope shortly 
to pull up to four feet. 

We had a very inspiring sermon this 
morning preached by the Bishop of Ala- 
bama. His text was : “ Judge not that 

ye be not judged.” It was about the ne- 
cessity of overlooking mistakes in others, 
and not discouraging people by harsh judg- 
ments. I wish you might have heard it. 

This is the* sunniest, most blinding win- 
ter afternoon, with icicles dripping from 
the fir trees and all the world bending un- 
61 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


der a weight of snow — except me, and 
I ’m bending under a weight of sorrow. 

Now for the news — courage, Judy! — 
you must tell. 

Are you surely in a good humor ? I 
flunked mathematics and Latin prose. I 
am tutoring in them, and will take another 
examination next month. I ’m sorry if 
you ’re disappointed, but otherwise I don’t 
care a bit because I ’ve learned such a lot 
of things not mentioned in the catalogue. 
I ’ve read seventeen novels and bushels of 
poetry — really necessary novels like “ Van- 
ity Fair ” and “ Richard Feverel ” and 
“ Alice in Wonderland.” Also Emerson’s 
“ Essays ” and Lockhart’s “ Life of Scott ” 
and the first volume of Gibbon’s “ Roman 
Empire ” and half of Benvenuto Cellini’s 
“ Life ” — wasn’t he entertaining? He 
used to saunter out and casually kill a man 
before breakfast. 

So you see, Daddy, I ’m much more in- 
telligent than if I ’d just stuck to Latin. 

62 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Will you forgive me this once if I promise 
never to flunk again? 

Yours in sackcloth, 

Judy. 


NEWS of tKe MOUTH 



63 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

This is an extra letter in the middle of 
the month because I ’m sort of lonely to- 
night. It’s awfully stormy; the snow is 
beating against my tower. All the lights 
are out on the campus, but I drank black 
coffee and I can’t go to sleep. 

I had a supper party this evening con- 
sisting of Sallie and Julia and Leonora 
Fenton — and sardines and toasted muffins 
and salad and fudge and coffee. Julia said 
she ’d had a good time, but Sallie stayed to 
help wash the dishes. 

I might, very usefully, put some time on 
Latin to-night — but, there ’s no doubt 
about it, I ’m a very languid Latin scholar. 
We ’ve finished Livy and De Senectute and 
are now engaged with De Amicitia (pro- 
nounced Damn Icitia). 

Should you mind, just for a little while, 
pretending you are my grandmother? Sal- 
lie has one and Julia and Leonora each two, 
and they were all comparing them to-night. 

64 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I can’t think of anything I ’d rather have; 
it ’s such a respectable relationship. So, 
if you really don’t object — When I went 
into town yesterday, I saw the sweetest cap 
of Cluny lace trimmed with lavender rib- 
bon. I am going to make you a present of 
it on your eighty-third birthday. 

!!!!!!!!!!!! 

That ’s the clock in the chapel tower 
striking twelve. I believe I am sleepy after 
all. 

Good night, Granny. 

I love you dearly. 

Judy. 


5 


65 


The Ides of March. 

Dear D. L. L., 

I am studying Latin prose composition. 
1 have been studying it. I shall be study- 
ing it. I shall be about to have been study- 
ing it. My reexamination comes the 7 th 
hour next Tuesday, and I am going to pass 
or BUST. So you may expect to hear 
from me next, whole and happy and free 
from conditions, or in fragments. 

I will write a respectable letter when it ’s 
over. To-night I have a pressing engage- 
ment with the Ablative Absolute. 

Yours — in evident haste, 

J. A. 


66 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


March 26th. 

Mr. D. L. L. Smith. 

Sir: You never answer any questions; 
you never show the slightest interest in any- 
thing I do. You are probably the horrid- 
est one of all those horrid Trustees, and 
the reason you are educating me is, not be- 
cause you care a bit about me, but from a 
sense of Duty. 

I don’t know a single thing about you. 
I don’t even know your name. It is very 
uninspiring writing to a Thing. I have n’t 
a doubt but that you throw my letters into 
the waste-basket without reading them. 
Hereafter I shall write only about work. 

My reexaminations in Latin and geome- 
try came last week. I passed them both 
and am now free from conditions. 

Yours truly, 

Jerusha Abbott. 


67 


April 2d. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I am a BEAST. 

Please forget about that dreadful letter 
I sent you last week — I was feeling terri- 
bly lonely and miserable and sore-throaty 
the night I wrote. I did n’t know it, but 
I was just coming down with tonsilitis and 
grippe and lots of things mixed. I ’m in 
the infirmary now, and have been here for 
six days; this is the first time they would 
let me sit up and have a pen and paper. 
The head nurse is very bossy. But I ’ve 
been thinking about it all the time and I 
shan’t get well until you forgive me. 

Here is a picture of the way I look, with 
a bandage tied around my head in rabbit’s 
ears. 

68 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 



Does n’t that arouse your sympathy ? I 
am having sublingual gland swelling. And 
I Ve been studying physiology all the year 
without ever hearing of sublingual glands. 
How futile a thing is education! 

I can’t write any more; I get sort of 
shaky when I sit up too long. Please for- 
give me for being impertinent and ungrate- 
ful. I was badly brought up. 

Yours with love, 

Judy Abbott. 


69 


The Infirmary. 


April 4th. 

Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Yesterday evening just toward dark, 
when I was sitting up in bed looking out at 
the rain and feeling awfully bored with life 
in a great institution, the nurse appeared 
with a long white box addressed to me, 
and filled with the loveliest pink rosebuds. 
And much nicer still, it contained a card 
with a very polite message written in a 
funny little uphill back hand (but one 
which shows a great deal of character). 
Thank you, Daddy, a thousand times. 
Your flowers make the first real, true pres- 
ent I ever received in my life. If you want 
to know what a baby I am, I lay down and 
cried because I was so happy. 

Now that I am sure you read my letters, 
70 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I ’ll make them much more interesting, 
so they ’ll be worth keeping in a safe 
with red tape around them — only please 
take out that dreadful one and burn it up. 
I ’d hate to think that you ever read it over. 

Thank you for making a very sick, cross, 
miserable Freshman cheerful. Probably 
you have lots of loving family and friends, 
and you don’t know what it feels like to be 
alone. But I do. 

Good-by — I ’ll promise never to be hor- 
rid again, because now I know you ’re a 
real person ; also I ’ll promise never to 
bother you with any more questions. 

Do you still hate girls? 

Yours forever, 

Judy. 


7i 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


8th hour, Monday. 
Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I hope you are n’t the Trustee who sat 
on the toad ? It went off — I was told — 
with quite a pop, so probably he was a fat- 
ter Trustee. 

Do you remember the little dugout places 
with gratings over them by the laundry win- 
dows in the John Grier Home? Every 
spring when the hoptoad season opened we 
used to form a collection of toads and keep 
them in those window holes; and occasion- 
ally they would spill over into the laundry, 
causing a very pleasurable commotion on 
wash days. We were severely punished 
for our activities in this direction, but in 
spite of all discouragement the toads would 
collect. 

And one day — well, I won’t bore you 
with particulars — but somehow, one of 
the fattest, biggest, juiciest toads got into 
72 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


one of those big leather arm chairs in the 
Trustees’ room, and that afternoon at the 
Trustees’ meeting — But I dare say you 
were there and recall the rest? 

Looking back dispassionately after a 
period of time, I will say that punishment 
was merited, and — if I remember rightly 
— adequate. 

I don’t know why I am in such a reminis- 
cent mood except that spring and the reap- 
pearance of toads always awakens the old 
acquisitive instinct. The only thing that 
keeps me from starting a collection is the 
fact that no rule exists against it. 


After chapel, Thursday. 

What do you think is my favorite book? 
Just now, I mean; I change every three 
days. “ Wuthering Heights.” Emily 
Bronte was quite young when she wrote it,, 
73 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and had never been outside of Haworth 
churchyard. She had never known any 
men in her life; how could she imagine a 
man like Heathcliffe? 

I could n’t do it, and I ’m quite young 
and never outside the John Grier Asylum 
— I ’ve had every chance in the world. 
Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me 
that I ’m not a genius. Will you be aw- 
fully disappointed, Daddy, if I don’t turn 
out to be a great author? In the spring 
when everything is so beautiful and green 
and budding, I feel like turning my back 
on lessons, and running away to play with 
the weather. There are such lots of ad- 
ventures out in the fields ! It ’s much more 
entertaining to live books than to write 
them. 

Ow !!!!!! 

That was a shriek which brought Sallie 
and Julia and (for a disgusted moment) 
74 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


the Senior from across the hall. It was 
caused by a centipede like this: 



only worse. Just as I had finished the last 
sentence and was thinking what to say next 

— plump ! — it fell off the ceiling and 
landed at my side. I tipped two cups off 
the tea table in trying to get away. Sallie 
whacked it with the back of my hair brush 

— which I shall never be able to use again 

— and killed the front end, but the rear 
fifty feet ran under the bureau and escaped. 

This dormitory, owing to its age and 
ivy-covered walls, is full of centipedes. 
They are dreadful creatures. I ’d rather 
find a tiger under the bed. 


75 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Friday, 9.30 p. m. 

Such a lot of troubles ! I did n’t hear 
the rising bell this morning, then I broke 
my shoe-string while I was hurrying to 
dress and dropped my collar button down 
my neck. I was late for breakfast and also 
for first-hour recitation. I forgot to take 
any blotting paper and my fountain pen 
leaked. In trigonometry the Professor and 
I had a disagreement touching a little mat- 
ter of logarithms. On looking it up, I find 
that she was right. We had mutton stew 
and pie-plant for lunch — hate ’em both ; 
they taste like the asylum. Nothing but 
bills in my mail (though I must say that 
I never do get anything else; my family are 
not the kind that write). In English class 
this afternoon we had an unexpected writ- 
ten lesson. This was it: 

I asked no other thing, 

No other was denied. 

I offered Being for it; 

The mighty merchant smiled. 

76 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Brazil? He twirled a button 
Without a glance my way : 

But, madam, is there nothing else 
That we can show to-day? 

That is a poem. I don’t know who 
wrote it or what it means. It was simply 
printed out on the blackboard when we ar- 
rived and we were ordered to comment upon 
it. When I read the first verse I thought 
I had an idea — The Mighty Merchant was 
a divinity who distributes blessings in re- 
turn for virtuous deeds — but when I got 
to the second verse and found him twirling 
a button, it seemed a blasphemous supposi- 
tion, and I hastily changed my mind. The 
rest of the class was in the same predica- 
ment; and there we sat for three quarters 
of an hour with blank paper and equally 
blank minds. Getting an education is an 
awfully wearing process ! 

But this did n’t end the day. There ’s 
worse to come. 

It rained so we could n’t play golf, but 

77 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


had to go to gymnasium instead. The girl 
next to me banged my elbow with an In- 
dian club. I got home to find that the box 
with my new blue spring dress had come, 
and the skirt was so tight that I could n’t sit 
down. Friday is sweeping day, and the 
maid had mixed all the papers on my desk. 
We had tombstone for dessert (milk and 
gelatin flavored with vanilla). We were 
kept in chapel twenty minutes later than 
usual to listen to a speech about womanly 
women. And then — just as I was settling 
down with a sigh of well-earned relief to 
“ The Portrait of a Lady,” a girl named 
Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly, unintermit- 
tently stupid girl, who sits next to me in 
Latin because her name begins with A (I 
wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski), 
came to ask if Monday’s lesson commenced 
at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE 
HOUR. She has just gone. 

Did you ever hear of such a discouraging 
series of events ? It is n’t the big troubles 
78 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


in life that require character. Anybody 
can rise to a crisis and face a crushing 
tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty 
hazards of the day with a laugh — I really 
think that requires spirit. 

It ’s the kind of character that I am going 
to develop. I am going to pretend that 
all life is just a game which I must play 
as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, 
I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh 
— also if I win. 

Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You 
will never hear me complain again, Daddy 
dear, because Julia wears silk stockings and 
centipedes drop off the wall. 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 

Answer soon. 


79 


May 27th. 


Daddy-Long-Legs , Esq. 

Dear Sir: I am in receipt of a letter 
from Mrs. Lippett. She hopes that I am 
doing well in deportment and studies. 
Since I probably have no place to go this 
summer, she will let me come back to the 
asylum and work for my board until col- 
lege opens. 

I HATE THE JOHN GRIER HOME. 

I ’d rather die than go back. 

Yours most truthfully, 

Jerusha Abbott. 


80 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Cher Daddy-J ambes-Longes, 

V oils ete$ un brick! 

Je snis tres heureuse about the farm, 
parsque je n’ai jamais been on a farm dans 
ma vie and I ’d hate to retourner chez John 
Grier, et wash dishes tout Pete. There 
would be danger of quelque chose atfreuse 
happening, parsque j’ai perdue ma humilite 
d’ autre fois et j’ai peur that I would just 
break out quelque jour et smash every cup 
and saucer dans la maison. 

Pardon brievete et paper. Je ne peux 
pas send des mes nouvelles parseque je suis 
dans French class et j’ai peur que Monsieur 
le Professeur is going to call on me tout de 
suite. 

He did! 

Au revoir, 

Je vous aime beaucoup. 

Judy. 


6 


81 


May 30th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Did you ever see this campus? (That is 
merely a rhetorical question. Don’t let it 
annoy you.) It is a heavenly spot in May. 
All the shrubs are in blossom and the trees 
are the loveliest young green — even the 
old pines look fresh and new. The grass 
is dotted with yellow dandelions and hun- 
dreds of girls in blue and white and pink 
dresses. Everybody is joyous and care- 
free, for vacation ’s coming, and with that 
to look forward to, examinations don’t 
count. 

Is n’t that a happy frame of mind to be 
in ? And oh, Daddy ! I ’m the happiest of 
all ! Because I ’m not in the asylum any 
more ; and I ’m not anybody’s nurse-maid 
or typewriter or bookkeeper (I should have 
been, you know, except for you). 

82 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I ’m sorry now for all my past badnesses. 

I ’m sorry I was ever impertinent to Mrs. 
Lippett. 

I ’m sorry I ever slapped Freddie Per- 
kins. 

I ’m sorry I ever filled the sugar bowl 
with salt. 

I ’m sorry I ever made faces behind the 
Trustees’ backs. 

I ’m going to be good and sweet and kind 
to everybody because I ’m so happy. And 
this summer I ’m going to write and write 
and write and begin to be a great author. 
Is n’t that an exalted stand to take ? Oh, 
I’m developing a beautiful character! It 
droops a bit under cold and frost, but it 
does grow fast when the sun shines. 

That ’s the way with everybody. I don’t 
agree with the theory that adversity and 
sorrow and disappointment develop moral 
strength. The happy people are the ones 
who are bubbling over with kindliness. I 
have no faith in misanthropes. (Fine 
83 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


word! Just learned it.) You are not a 
misanthrope are you, Daddy? 

I started to tell you about the campus. I 
wish you ’d come for a little visit and let 
me walk you about and say: 

“ That is the library. This is the gas 
plant, Daddy dear. The Gothic building 
on your left is the gymnasium, and the 
Tudor Romanesque beside it is the new in- 
firmary. ’’ 

Oh, I ’m fine at showing people about. 
I ’ve done it all my life at the asylum, and 
I ’ve been doing it all day here. I have 
honestly. 

And a Man, too ! 

That ’s a great experience. I never 
talked to a man before (except occasional 
Trustees, and they don’t count). Pardon, 
Daddy. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings 
when I abuse Trustees. I don’t consider 
that you really belong among them. You 
just tumbled onto the Board by chance. The 
Trustee, as such, is fat and pompous and 
84 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


benevolent. He pats one on the head and 
wears a gold watch chain. 



That looks like a June bug, but is meant 
to be a portrait of any Trustee except you. 

However — to resume: 

I have been walking and talking and hav- 
ing tea with a man. And with a very supe- 
rior man — with Mr. Jervis Pendleton of 
the House of Julia; her uncle, in short (in 

85 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


long, perhaps I ought to say ; he ’s as tall as 
you). Being in town on business, he de- 
cided to run out to the college and call on 
his niece. He ’s her father’s youngest 
brother, but she does n’t know him very 
intimately. It seems he glanced at her 
when she was a baby, decided he did n’t like 
her, and has never noticed her since. 

Anyway, there he was, sitting in the re- 
ception room very proper with his hat and 
stick and gloves beside him; and Julia and 
Sallie with seventh-hour recitations that 
they could n’t cut. So Julia dashed into 
my room and begged me to walk him about 
the campus and then deliver him to her 
when the seventh hour was over. I said 
I would, obligingly but unenthusiastically, 
because I don’t care much for Pendletons. 

But he turned out to be a sweet lamb. 
He ’s a real human being — not a Pendle- 
ton at all. We had a beautiful time; I’ve 
longed for an uncle ever since. Do you 
86 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


mind pretending you’re my uncle? I be- 
lieve they ’re superior to grandmothers. 

Mr. Pendleton reminded me a little of 
you, Daddy, as you were twenty years ago. 
You see I know you intimately, even if we 
have n’t ever met ! 

He ’s tall and thinnish with a dark face 
all over lines, and the funniest underneath 
smile that never quite comes through but 
just wrinkles up the corners of his mouth. 
And he has a way of making you feel right 
off as though you ’d known him a long 
time. He ’s very companionable. 

We walked all over the campus from 
the quadrangle to the athletic grounds ; then 
he said he felt weak and must have some 
tea. He proposed that we go to College 
Inn — it ’s just off the campus by the pine 
walk. I said we ought to go back for Julia 
and Sallie, but he said he did n’t like to have 
his nieces drink too much tea ; it made them 
nervous. So we just ran away and had tea 

87 


/ 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and muffins and marmalade and ice-cream 
and cake at a nice little table out on the 
balcony. The inn was quite conveniently 
empty, this being the end of the month and 
allowances low. 

We had the jolliest time! But he had to 
run for his train the minute he got back 
and he barely saw Julia at all. She was 
furious with me for taking him off ; it 
seems he ’s an unusually rich and desirable 
uncle. It relieved my mind to find he was 
rich, for the tea and things cost sixty cents 
apiece. 

This morning (it’s Monday now) three 
boxes of chocolates came by express for 
Julia and Sallie and me. What do you 
think of that? To be getting candy from 
a man! 

I begin to feel like a girl instead of a 
foundling. 

I wish you ’d come and take tea some 
day and let me see if I like you. But 
88 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


would n't it be dreadful if I did n’t? How- 
ever, I know I should. 

Bien! I make you my compliments. 

“ Jamais je ne t’ oublierai.” 

Judy. 

P. S. I looked in the glass this morning 
and found a perfectly new dimple that 
I ’d never seen before. It ’s very curious. 
Where do you suppose it came from ? 


89 


June 9th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Happy day ! I Ve just finished my last 
examination — Physiology. And now : 

Three months on a farm! 

I don’t know what kind of a thing a farm 
is. I Ve never been on one in my life. 
I Ve never even looked at one (except from 
the car window), but I know I ’m going 
to love it, and I ’m going to love being 
free . 

I am not used even yet to being outside 
the John Grier Home. Whenever I think 
of it excited little thrills chase up and down 
my back. I feel as though I must run fas- 
ter and faster and keep looking over my 
shoulder to make sure that Mrs. Lippett 
is n’t after me with her arm stretched out 
to grab me back. 


90 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I don't have to mind any one this sum- 
mer, do I? 

Your nominal authority does n’t annoy 
me in the least; you are too far away to do 
any harm. Mrs. Lippett is dead forever, 
so far as I am concerned, and the Semples 
are n’t expected to overlook my moral wel- 
fare, are they? No, I am sure not. I am 
entirely grown up. Hooray! 

I leave you now to pack a trunk, and 
three boxes of teakettles and dishes and 
sofa cushions and books. 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 

P. S. Here is my physiology exam. 
Do you think you could have passed ? 


91 


Lock Willow Farm, 


Saturday night. 
Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I ’ve only just come and I ’m not un- 
packed, but I can’t wait to tell you how 
much I like farms. This is a heavenly, 
heavenly, heavenly spot ! The house is 
square like this : 



And old. A hundred years or so. It 
has a veranda on the side which I can’t 
draw and a sweet porch in front. The pic- 
92 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ture really doesn’t do it justice — those 
things that look like feather dusters are 
maple trees, and the prickly ones that bor- 
der the drive are murmuring pines and hem- 
locks. It stands on the top of a hill and 
looks way off over miles of green meadows 
to another line of hills. 



That is the way Connecticut goes, in a 
series of Marcelle waves ; and Lock Willow 
Farm is just on the crest of one wave. 
The barns used to be across the road where 
they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of 
lightning came from heaven and burnt them 
down. 

The people are Mr. and Mrs. Semple and 
a hired girl and two hired men. The hired 
people eat in the kitchen, and the Semples 
and Judy in the dining-room. We had 
ham and eggs and biscuits and honey and 
jelly-cake and pie and pickles and cheese 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and tea for supper — and a great deal of 
conversation. I have never been so enter- 
taining in my life; everything I say appears 
to be funny. I suppose it is, because I ’ve 
never been in the country before, and my 
questions are backed by an all-inclusive ig- 
norance. 

The room marked with a cross is not 
where the murder was committed, but the 
one that I occupy. It ’s big and square and 
empty, with adorable old-fashioned furni- 
ture and windows that have to be propped 
up on sticks and green shades trimmed with 
gold that fall down if you touch them. 
And a big square mahogany table — I ’m 
going to spend the summer with my elbows 
spread out on it, writing a novel. 

Oh, Daddy, I ’m so excited ! I can’t 
wait till daylight to explore. It ’s 8.30 
now, and I am about to blow out my can- 
dle and try to go to sleep. We rise at five. 
Did you ever know such fun? I can’t be- 
lieve this is really Judy. You and the 
94 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Good Lord give me more than I deserve. 
I must be a very, very, very good person to 
pay. I ’m going to be. You ’ll see. 

Good night, 

Judy. 

P. S. You should hear the frogs sing 
and the little pigs squeal — and you should 
see the new moon ! I saw it over my right 
shoulder. 


t 


95 




Lock Willow, 


July 1 2th. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

How did your secretary come to know 
about Lock Willow? (That is n’t a rhetor- 
ical question. I am awfully curious to 
know.) For listen to this: Mr. Jervis 
Pendleton used to own this farm, but now 
he has given it to Mrs. Semple who was 
his old nurse. Did you ever hear of such 
a funny coincidence? She still calls him 
“ Master Jervie ” and talks about what a 
sweet little boy he used to be. She has one 
of his baby curls put away in a box, and 
it ’s red - — or at least reddish ! 

Since she discovered that I know him, 
I have risen very much in her opinion. 
Knowing a member of the Pendleton fam- 
ily is the best introduction one can have at 
96 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Lock Willow. And the cream of the whole 
family is Master Jervie — I am pleased to 
say that Julia belongs to an inferior branch. 

The farm gets more and more entertain- 
ing. I rode on a hay wagon yesterday. 
We have three big pigs and nine little pig- 
lets, and you should see them eat. They 
are pigs ! We ’ve oceans of little baby 
chickens and ducks and turkeys and guinea 
fowls. You must be mad to live in a city 
when you might live on a farm. 

It is my daily business to hunt the eggs. 
I fell off a beam in the barn loft yester- 
day, while I was trying to crawl over to a 
nest that the black hen has stolen. And 
when I came in with a scratched knee, Mrs. 
Semple bound it up with witch-hazel, mur- 
muring all the time, “ Dear ! Dear ! It 
seems only yesterday that Master Jervie 
fell off that very same beam and scratched 
this very same knee.” 

The scenery around here is perfectly 
beautiful. There’s a valley and a river 
7 97 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and a lot of wooded hills, and way in the 
distance, a tall blue mountain that simply 
melts in your mouth. 

We churn twice a week; and we keep 
the cream in the spring house which is made 
of stone with the brook running under- 
neath. Some of the farmers around here 
have a separator, but we don’t care for 
these new- fashioned ideas. It may be a 
little harder to take care of cream raised in 
pans, but it ’s enough better to pay. We 
have six calves ; and I ’ve chosen the names 
for all of them. 

1. Sylvia, because she was born in the 
woods. 

2. Lesbia, after the Lesbia in Catullus. 

3. Sallie. 

4. Julia — a spotted, nondescript animal. 

5. Judy, after me. 

6. Daddy-Long-Legs. You don’t mind, 
do you, Daddy? He’s pure Jersey and 
has a sweet disposition. He looks like this 
— you can see how appropriate the name is. 

98 



DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I have n’t had time yet to begin my im- 
mortal novel; the farm keeps me too busy. 

Yours always, 

Judy. 

P. S. I ’ve learned to make doughnuts. 

P. S. (2) If you are thinking of raising 
chickens, let me recommend Buff Orping- 
tons. They have n’t any pin feathers. 

P. S. (3) I wish I could send you a 
pat of the nice, fresh butter I churned yes- 
terday. I ’m a fine dairy-maid ! 

P. S. (4) This is a picture of Miss 
Jerusha Abbott, the future great author, 
driving home the cows. 



100 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Sunday. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Is n’t it funny ? I started to write to 
you yesterday afternoon, but as far as I got 
was the heading, “ Dear Daddy-Long- 
Legs,” and then I remembered I ’d prom- 
ised to pick some blackberries for supper, 
so I went off and left the sheet lying on the 
table, and when I came back to-day, what 
do you think I found sitting in the middle 
of the page? A real true Daddy-Long- 
Legs ! 



I picked him up very gently by one leg, 
and dropped him out of the window. I 

IOI 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


"would n’t hurt one of them for the world. 
'They always remind me of you. 

We hitched up the spring wagon this 
morning and drove to the Center to church. 
It ’s a sweet little white frame church with 
:a spire and three Doric columns in front 
(or maybe Ionic — I always get them 
mixed). 

A nice, sleepy sermon with everybody 
drowsily waving palm-leaf fans, and the 
only sound aside from the minister, the 
buzzing of locusts in the trees outside. I 
did n’t wake up till I found myself on my 
feet singing the hymn, and then I was aw- 
fully sorry I had n’t listened to the sermon ; 
I should like to know more of the psychol- 
ogy of a man who would pick out such a 
hymn. This was it: 

Come, leave your sports and earthly toys 

And join me in celestial joys. 

Or else, dear friend, a long farewell. 

I leave you now to sink to hell. 


102 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I find that it is n’t safe to discuss re- 
ligion with the Semples. Their God 
(whom they have inherited intact from 
their remote Puritan ancestors) is a nar- 
row, irrational, unjust, mean, revengeful, 
bigoted Person. Thank heaven I don’t in- 
herit any God from anybody! I am free 
to make mine up as I wish Him. He ’s 
kind and sympathetic and imaginative and 
forgiving and understanding — and He 
has a sense of humor. 

I like the Semples immensely; their prac- 
tice is so superior to their theory. They 
are better than their own God. I told them 
so — and they are horribly troubled. They 
think I am blasphemous — and I think they 
are ! We ’ve dropped theology from our 
conversation. 

This is Sunday afternoon. 

Amasai (hired man) in a purple tie and 
some bright yellow buckskin gloves, very 
red and shaved, has just driven off with 
Carrie (hired girl) in a big hat trimmed 
103 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


with red roses and a blue muslin dress and 
her hair curled as tight as it will curl. 
Amasai spent all the morning washing the 
buggy ; and Carrie stayed home from 
church ostensibly to cook the dinner, but 
really to iron the muslin dress. 

In two minutes more when this letter is 
finished I am going to settle down to a book 
which I found in the attic. It ’s entitled, 
“ On the Trail,” and sprawled across the 
front page in a funny little-boy hand : 

Jervis Pendleton 
If this book should ever roam. 

Box its ears and send it home. 

He spent the summer here once after he 
had been ill, when he was about eleven 
years old; and he left “ On the Trail ” be- 
hind. It looks well read — the marks of 
his grimy little hands are frequent! Also 
in a corner of the attic there is a water 
wheel and a windmill and some bows and 
104 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


arrows. Mrs. Semple talks so constantly 
about him that I begin to believe he really 
lives — not a grown man with a silk hat 
and walking stick, but a nice, dirty, tousle- 
headed boy who clatters up the stairs with 
an awful racket, and leaves the screen doors 
open, and is always asking for cookies. 
(And getting them, too, if I know Mrs. 
Semple!) He seems to have been an ad- 
venturous little soul — and brave and truth- 
ful. I ’m sorry to think he is a Pendle- 
ton; he was meant for something better. 

We Ye going to begin threshing oats to- 
morrow; a steam engine is coming and 
three extra men. 

It grieves me to tell you that Buttercup 
(the spotted cow with one horn, Mother 
of Lesbia) has done a disgraceful thing. 
She got into the orchard Friday evening 
and ate apples under the trees, and ate and 
ate until they went to her head For two 
days she has been perfectly dead drunk l 
105 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

That is the truth I am telling. Did you 
ever hear anything so scandalous? 

Sir, 

I remain, 

Your affectionate orphan, 

Judy Abbott. 

P. S. Indians in the first chapter and high- 
waymen in the second. I hold my breath. 
What can the third contain ? “ Red Hawk 

leapt twenty feet in the air and bit the 
dust.” That is the subject of the frontis- 
piece. Are n’t Judy and Jervie having fun? 


106 


September 15th. 


Dear Daddy , 

I was weighed yesterday on the flour 
scales in the general store at the Corners. 
I ’ve gained nine pounds ! Let me recom- 
mend Lock Willow as a health resort. 


Yours ever, 

Judy. 



107 ' 


September 25th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Behold me — a Sophomore ! I came up 
last Friday, sorry to leave Lock Willow, 
but glad to see the campus again. It is 
a pleasant sensation to come back to some- 
thing familiar. I am beginning to feel at 
home in college, and in command of the 
situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel 
at home in the world — as though I really 
belonged in it and had not just crept in on 
sufferance. 

I don’t suppose you understand in the 
least what I am trying to say. A person 
important enough to be a Trustee can’t ap- 
preciate the feelings of a person unimpor- 
tant enough to be a foundling. 

And now, Daddy, listen to this. Whom 
do you think I am rooming with? Sallie 
108 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


McBride and Julia Rutledge Pendleton. 
It *s the truth. We have a study and three 
little bedrooms — voila! 



Sallie and I decided last spring that we 
should like to room together, and Julia 
made up her mind to stay with Sallie — 
why, I can’t imagine, for they are not a bit 
alike ; but the Pendletons are naturally con- 
servative and inimical (fine word!) to 
change. Anyway, here we are. Think of 
Jerusha Abbott, late of the John Grier 
Home for Orphans, rooming with a Pendle- 
ton. This is a democratic country. 

Sallie is running for class president, and 
unless all signs fail, she is going to be 
elected. Such an atmosphere of intrigue — 
you should see what politicians we are! 

109 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Oh, I tell you, Daddy, when we women get 
our rights, you men will have to look alive 
in order to keep yours. Election comes 
next Saturday, and we ’re going to have a 
torchlight procession in the evening, no 
matter who wins. 

I am beginning chemistry, a most un- 
usual study. I ’ve never seen anything like 
it before. Molecules and Atoms are the 
material employed, but I ’ll be in a position 
to discuss them more definitely next month. 

I am also taking argumentation and logic. 

Also history of the whole world. 

Also plays of William Shakespeare. 

Also French. 

If this keeps up many years longer, I 
shall become quite intelligent. 

I should rather have elected economics 
than French, but I didn’t dare, because I 
was afraid that unless I reelected French, 
the Professor would not let me pass — as 
it was, I just managed to squeeze through 
the June examination. But I will say that 
no 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

my high-school preparation was not very 
adequate. 

There ’s one girl in the class who chatters 
away in French as fast as she does in 
English. She went abroad with her parents 
when she was a child, and spent three years 
in a convent school. You can imagine how 
bright she is compared with the rest of us 
— irregular verbs are mere playthings. I 
wish my parents had chucked me into a 
French convent when I was little instead 
of a foundling asylum. Oh, no, I don’t 
either ! Because then maybe I should never 
have known you. I ’d rather know you 
than French. 

Good-by, Daddy. I must call on Har- 
riet Martin now, and, having discussed the 
chemical situation, casually drop a few 
thoughts on the subject of our next presi- 
dent. 

Yours in politics, 

J. Abbott. 


hi 


October 17th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Supposing the swimming tank in the 
gymnasium were filled full of lemon jelly, 
could a person trying to swim manage to 
keep on top or would he sink ? 

We were having lemon jelly for dessert 
when the question came up. We discussed 
it heatedly for half an hour and it ’s still 
unsettled. Sallie thinks that she could 
swim in it, but I am perfectly sure that the 
best swimmer in the world would sink. 
Would n’t it be funny to be drowned in 
lemon jelly? 

Two other problems are engaging the 
attention of our table. 

1 st. What shape are the rooms in an 
octagon house? Some of the girls insist 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


that they 're square ; but I think they ’d 
have to be shaped like a piece of pie. Don’t 
you? 

2d. Suppose there were a great big hol- 
low sphere made of looking-glass and you 
were sitting inside. Where would it stop 
reflecting your face and begin reflecting 
your back ? The more one thinks about 
this problem, the more puzzling it becomes. 
You can see with what deep philosophical 
reflection we engage our leisure ! 

Did I ever tell you about the election ? It 
happened three weeks ago, but so fast do 
we live, that three weeks is ancient history. 
Sallie was elected, and we had a torchlight 
parade with transparencies saying, “ Mc- 
Bride Forever,” and a band consisting of 
fourteen pieces (three mouth organs and 
eleven combs). 

We ’re veyy important persons now in 
“ 258.” Julia and I come in for a great 
deal of reflected glory. It ’s quite a social 

8 113 


9 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


strain to be living in the same house with a 
president. 

Bonne nuit, cher Daddy. 

Accept ez mes compliments , 

Tres respectueux. 

Je snis, 
Votre Judy. 



DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


November 12th. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

We beat the Freshmen at basket ball yes- 
terday. Of course we’re pleased — but 
oh, if we could only beat the Juniors! I ’d 
be willing to be black and blue all over and 
stay in bed a week in a witch-hazel com- 
press. 

Sallie has invited me to spend the Christ- 
mas vacation with her. She lives in 
Worcester, Massachusetts. Was n’t it nice 
of her? I shall love to go. I ’ve never 
been in a private family in my life, except 
at Lock Willow, and the Semples were 
grown-up and old and don’t count. But 
the McBrides have a houseful of children 
(anyway two or three) and a mother and 
father and grandmother, and an Angora 
cat. It ’s a perfectly complete family ! 
Packing your trunk and going away is 
more fun than staying behind. I am terri- 
bly excited at the prospect. 

Seventh hour — I must run to rehearsal. 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

I ’m to be in the Thanksgiving theatricals. 
A prince in a tower with a velvet tunic and 
yellow curls. Is n’t that a lark ? 

Yours, 

J- A. 


Saturday. 

Do you want to know what I look like? 
Here ’s a photograph of all three that 
Leonora Fenton took. 

The light one who is laughing is Sallie, 
and the tall one with her nose in the air 
is Julia, and the little one with the hair 
blowing across her face is Judy — she is 
really more beautiful than that, but the sun 
was in her eyes. 


116 


“ Stone Gate,” 

Worcester, Mass., 

December 31st. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I meant to write to you before and thank 
you for your Christmas check, but life in 
the McBride household is very absorbing, 
and I don’t seem able to find two consecu- 
tive minutes to spend at a desk. 

I bought a new gown — one that I 
did n’t need, but just wanted. My Christ- 
mas present this year is from Daddy-Long- 
Legs; my family just sent love. 

I ’ve been having the most beautiful vaca- 
tion visiting Sallie. She lives in a big old- 
fashioned brick house with white trimmings 
set back from the street — exactly the kind 
of house that I used to look at so curiously 
when I was in the John Grier Home, and 
117 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

wonder what it could be like inside. I 
never expected to see with my own eyes — 
but here I am ! Everything is so com- 
fortable and restful and homelike; I walk 
from room to room and drink in the fur- 
nishings. 

It is the most perfect house for children 
to be brought up in; with shadowy nooks 
for hide and seek, and open fireplaces for 
pop-corn, and an attic to romp in on rainy 
days, and slippery banisters with a com- 
fortable flat knob at the bottom, and a great 
big sunny kitchen, and a nice fat, sunny 
cook who has lived in the family thirteen 
years and always saves out a piece of 
dough for the children to bake. Just the 
sight of such a house makes you want to 
be a child all over again. 

And as for families! I never dreamed 
they could be so nice. Sallie has a father 
and mother and grandmother, and the 
sweetest three-year-old baby sister all over 
curls, and a medium-sized brother who al- 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ways forgets to wipe his feet, and a big, 
good-looking brother named Jimmie, who 
is a junior at Princeton. 

We have the jolliest times at the table 
— everybody laughs and jokes and talks 
at once, and we don’t have to say grace be- 
forehand. It ’s a relief not having to 
thank Somebody for every mouthful you 
eat. (I dare say I ’m blasphemous; but 
you ’d be, too, if you ’d offered as much 
obligatory thanks as I have.) 

Such a lot of thiiigs we ’ve done — I 
can’t begin to tell you about them. Mr. 
McBride owns a factory, and Christmas ere 
he had a tree for the employees’ children. 
It was in the long packing-room which was 
decorated with evergreens and holly. Jim- 
mie McBride was dressed as Santa Claus, 
and Sallie and I helped him distribute the 
presents. 

Dear me, Daddy, but it was a funny sen- 
sation! I felt as benevolent as a Trustee 
of the John Grier Home. I kissed one 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


sweet, sticky little boy — but I don’t think 
I patted any of them on the head ! 

And two days after Christmas, they gave 
a dance at their own house for ME. 

It was the first really true ball Lever at- 
tended — college does n’t count where we 
dance with girls. I had a new white even- 
ing gown (your Christmas present — 
many thanks) and long white gloves and 
white satin slippers. The only drawback 
to my perfect, utter, absolute happiness was 
the fact that Mrs. Lippett could n’t see me 
leading the cotillion with Jimmie McBride. 
Tell her about it, please, the next time you 
visit the J. G. H. 

Yours ever, 

Judy Abbott. 

P. S. Would you be terribly displeased. 
Daddy, if I did n’t turn out to be a Great 
Author after all, but just a Plain Girl? 


120 


6.30, Saturday. 


Dear Daddy , 

We started to walk to town to-day, but 
mercy! how it poured. I like winter to be 
winter with snow instead of rain. 

Julia’s desirable uncle called again this 
afternoon — and brought a five-pound box 
of chocolates. There are advantages you 
see about rooming with Julia. 

Our innocent prattle appeared to amuse 
him and he waited over a train in order to 
take tea in the study. And an awful lot 
of trouble we had getting permission. It ’s 
hard enough entertaining fathers and grand- 
fathers, but uncles are a step worse; and as 
for brothers and cousins, they are next to 
impossible. Julia had to swear that he was 
her uncle before a notary public and then 
have the county clerk’s certificate attached. 


121 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


(Don’t I know a lot of law?) And even 
then I doubt if we could have had our tea 
if the Dean had chanced to see how young- 
ish and good-looking Uncle Jervis is. 

Anyway, we had it, with brown bread 
Swiss cheese sandwiches. He helped make 
them and then ate four. I told him that 
I had spent last summer at Lock Willow, 
and we had a beautiful gossipy time about 
the Semples, and the horses and cows and 
chickens. All the horses that he used to 
know are dead, except Grover, who was a 
baby colt at the time of his last visit — 
and poor Grove now is so old he can just 
limp about the pasture. 

He asked if they still kept doughnuts in 
a yellow crock with a blue plate over it on 
the bottom shelf of the pantry — and they 
do! He wanted to know if there was still 
a woodchuck’s hole under the pile of rocks 
in the night pasture — and there is! 
Amasai caught a big, fat, gray one there 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


this summer, the twenty-fifth great-grand- 
son of the one Master Jervie caught when 
he was a little boy. 

I called him “ Master Jervie ” to his face, 
but he did n’t appear to be insulted. Julia 
says that she has never seen him so amiable ; 
he ’s usually pretty unapproachable. But 
Julia hasn’t a bit of tact; and men, I find, 
require a great deal. They purr if you 
rub them the right way and spit if you 
don’t. (That is n’t a very elegant meta- 
phor. I mean it figuratively.) 

We ’re reading Marie Bashkirtseff’s jour- 
nal. Isn’t it amazing? Listen to this: 
“ Last night I was seized by a fit of despair 
that found utterance in moans, and that 
finally drove me to throw the dining-room 
clock into the sea.” 

It makes me almost hope I ’m not a 
genius; they must be very wearing to have 
about — and awfully destructive to the fur- 
niture. 


123 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 



124 


Jan. 20th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Did you ever have a sweet baby girl who 
was stolen from the cradle in infancy? 

Maybe I am she! If we were in a novel, 
that would be the denouement, would n’t it ? 

It ’s really awfully queer not to know 
what one is — sort of exciting and romantic. 
There are such a lot of possibilities. Maybe 
I’m not American; lots of people aren’t. 
I may be straight descended from the 
ancient Romans, or I may be a Viking’s 
daughter, or I. may be the child of a Rus- 
sian exile and belong by rights in a Siberian 
prison, or maybe I ’m a Gipsy — I think 
perhaps I am. I have a very wandering 
spirit, though I have n’t as yet had much 
chance to develop it. 

Do you know about that one scandalous 

125 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


blot in my career — the time I ran away 
from the asylum because they punished me 
for stealing cookies ? It ’s down in the 
books free for any Trustee to read. But 
really, Daddy, what could you expect ? 
When you put a hungry little nine-year girl 
in the pantry scouring knives, with the 
cookie jar at her elbow, and go off and leave 
her alone; and then suddenly pop in again, 
would n’t you expect to find her a bit 
crumby? And then when you jerk her by 
the elbow and box her ears, and make her 
leave the table when the pudding comes, and 
tell all the other children that it ’s because 
she ’s a thief, would n’t you expect her to 
run away? 

I only ran four miles. They caught me 
and brought me back; and every day for a 
week I was tied, like a naughty puppy, to 
a stake in the back yard while the other 
children were out at recess. 

Oh, dear ! There ’s the chapel bell, and 
after chapel I have a committee meeting. 

126 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I ’m sorry because I meant to write you a 
very entertaining letter this time. 

Anf wiedersehen 

Cher Daddy 

Pax tibi ! 
Judy. 

P. S. There ’s one thing I ’m perfectly 
sure of. I’m not a Chinaman. 


127 


February 4th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Jimmie McBride has sent me a Princeton 
banner as big as one end of the room ; I am 
very grateful to him for remembering me, 
but I don’t know what on earth to do with 
it. Sallie and Julia won’t let me hang it 
up; our room this year is furnished in red, 
and you can imagine what an effect we ’d 
have if I added orange and black. But 
it ’s such nice, warm, thick felt, I hate to 
waste it. Would it be very improper to 
have it made into a bath robe ? My old one 
shrank when it was washed. 

I ’ve entirely omitted of late telling you 
what I am learning, but though you might 
not imagine it from my letters, my time is 
exclusively occupied with study. It ’s a 
128 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 



very bewildering matter to get educated in 
five branches at once. 

“ The test of true scholarship,” says 
Chemistry Professor, “ is a painstaking 
passion for detail.” 

“ Be careful not to keep vour eyes glued 
to detail,” says History Professor. “ Stand 
far enough away to get a perspective on the 
whole.” 

You can see with what nicety we have to 
9 129 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


trim our sails between chemistry and his- 
tory. I like the historical method best. 
If I say that William the Conqueror came 
over in 1492, and Columbus discovered 
America in iioo or 1066 or whenever it 
was, that ’s a mere detail that the Professor 
overlooks. It gives a feeling of security 
and restfulness to the history recitation, 
that is entirely lacking in chemistry. 

Sixth-hour bell — I must go to the 
laboratory and look into a little matter of 
acids and salts and alkalis. I ’ve burned a 
hole as big as a plate in the front of my 
chemistry apron, with hydrochloric acid. 
If the theory worked, I ought to be able to 
neutralize that hole with good strong am- 
monia, ought n’t I ? 

Examinations next week, but who ’s 
afraid? 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 


130 


March 5th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

There is a March wind blowing, and the 
sky is filled with heavy, black moving 
clouds. The crows in the pine trees are 
making such a clamor ! It ’s an intoxica- 
ting, exhilarating, calling noise. You want 
to close your books and be off over the hills 
to race with the wind. 

We had a paper chase last Saturday over 
five miles of squashy ’cross country. The 
fox (composed of three girls and a bushel , 
or so of confetti) started half an hour 
before the twenty-seven hunters. I was one 
of the twenty-seven; eight dropped by the 
wayside; we ended nineteen. The trail led 
over a hill, through a cornfield, and into 
a swamp where we had to leap lightly from 
hummock to hummock. Of course half of 

131 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


us went in ankle deep. We kept losing the 
trail, and wasted twenty-five minutes over 
that swamp. Then up a hill through some 
woods and in at a barn window ! The 
barn doors were all locked and the window 
was up high and pretty small. I don’t call 
that fair, do you ? 

But we did n’t go through ; we circum- 
navigated the barn and picked up the trail 
where it issued by way of a low shed roof 
onto the top of a fence. The fox thought 
he had us there, but we fooled him. Then 
straight away over two miles of rolling 
meadow, and awfully hard to follow, for 
the confetti was getting sparse. The rule 
is that it must be at the most six feet apart, 
but they were the longest six feet I ever 
saw. Finally, after two hours of steady 
trotting, we tracked Monsieur Fox into the 
kitchen of Crystal Spring (that ’s a farm 
where the girls go in bob sleighs and hay 
wagons for chicken and waffle suppers) and 
we found the three foxes placidly eating 
132 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


milk and honey and biscuits. They had n’t 
thought we would get that far; they were 
expecting us to stick in the barn window. 

Both sides insist that they won. I think 
we did, don’t you? Because we caught 
them before they got back to the campus. 
Anyway, all nineteen of us settled like 
locusts over the furniture and clamored for 
honey. There was n’t enough to go round,, 
but Mrs. Crystal Spring (that ’s our pet 
name for her; she’s by rights a Johnson) 
brought up a jar of strawberry jam and a 
can of maple syrup — just made last week 
— and three loaves of brown bread. 

We did n’t get back to college till half- 
past six — half an hour late for dinner — 
and we went straight in without dressing, 
and with perfectly unimpaired appetites! 
Then we all cut evening chapel, the state of 
our boots being enough of an excuse. 

I never told you about examinations. I 
passed everything with the utmost ease — 
I know the secret now, and am never going 
133 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


to flunk again. I shan’t be able to gradu- 
ate with honors though, because of that 
beastly Latin prose and geometry Freshman 
year. But I don’t care. Wot ’s the hodds 
so long as you’re ’appy? (That’s a quo- 
tation. I ’ve been reading the English 
classics.) 

Speaking of classics, have you ever read 
“ Hamlet ” ? If you have n’t, do it right 
off. It ’s perfectly corking. I ’ve been 
hearing about Shakespeare all my life, but 
I had no idea he really wrote so well; I 
always suspected him of going largely on 
his reputation. 

I have a beautiful play that I invented a 
long time ago when I first learned to read. 
I put myself to sleep every night by pre- 
tending I ’m the person (the most important 
person) in the book I’m reading at the 
moment. 

At present I ’m Ophelia — and such a 
sensible Ophelia! I keep Hamlet amused 
all the time, and pet him and scold him and 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

make him wrap up his throat when he has 
a cold. I ’ve entirely cured him of being 
melancholy. The King and Queen are both 
dead — an accident at sea; no funeral 
necessary — so Hamlet and I are ruling in 
Denmark without any bother. We have 
the kingdom working beautifully. He 
takes care of the governing, and I look after 
the charities. I have just founded some 
first-class orphan asylums. If you or any 
of the other Trustees would like to visit 
them, I shall be pleased to show you 
through. I think you might find a great 
many helpful suggestions. 

I remain, sir, 

Yours most graciously, 

Ophelia, 

Queen of Denmark. 


135 


March 24th 
maybe the 25th. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I don’t believe I can be going to Heaven 
— I am getting such a lot of good things 
here ; it would n’t be fair to get them here- 
after, too. Listen to what has happened. 

Jerusha Abbott has won the short-story 
contest (a twenty-five dollar prize) that the 
Monthly holds every year. And she a 
Sophomore ! The contestants are mostly 
Seniors. When I saw my name posted, I 
could n’t quite believe it was true. Maybe 
I am going to be an author after all. I 
wish Mrs. Lippett had n’t given me such a 
silly name — it sounds like an author-ess, 
does n’t it? 

Also I have been chosen for the spring 
136 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


dramatics — “As You Like It” out of 
doors. I am going to be Celia, own cousin 
to Rosalind. 

And lastly: Julia and Sallie and I are 
going to New York next Friday to do some 
spring shopping and stay all night and go 
to the theater the next day with “ Master 
Jervie.” He invited us. Julia is going to 
stay at home with her family, but Sallie 
and I are going to stop at the Martha Wash- 
ington Hotel. Did you ever hear of any- 
thing so exciting? I ’ve never been in a 
hotel in my life, nor in a theater; except 
once when the Catholic Church had a fes- 
tival and invited the orphans, but that 
was n’t a real play and it does n’t count. 

And what do you think we ’re going to 
see? “Hamlet.” Think of that! We 
studied it for four weeks in Shakespeare 
class and I know it by heart. 

I am so excited over all these prospects 
that I can scarcely sleep. 

137 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Good-by, Daddy. 

This is a very entertaining world. 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 

P. S. I ’ve just looked at the calendar. 
It ’s the 28th. 

Another postscript. 

I saw a street car conductor to-day with 
one brown eye and one blue. Would n’t he 
make a nice villain Jior a detective story? 


138 


April 7th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Mercy! Is n’t New York big? Worces- 
ter is nothing to it. Do you mean to tell 
me that you actually live in all that confu- 
sion? I don’t believe that I shall recover 
for months from the bewildering effect of 
two days of it. I can’t begin to tell you 
all the amazing things I ’ve seen ; I suppose 
you know, though, since you live there 
yourself. 

But are n’t the streets entertaining ? And 
the people? And the shops? I never saw 
such lovely things as there are in the win- 
dows. It makes you want to devote your 
life to wearing clothes. 

Sallie and Julia and I went shopping to- 
gether Saturday morning. Julia went into 
the very most gorgeous place I ever saw, 
white and gold walls and blue carpets and 
139 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


blue silk curtains and gilt chairs. A per- 
fectly beautiful lady with yellow hair and 
a long black silk trailing gown came to meet 
us with a welcoming smile. I thought we 
were paying a social call, and started to 
shake hands, but it seems we were only buy- 
ing hats — at least Julia was. She sat 
down in front of a mirror and tried on a 
dozen, each lovelier than the last, and 
bought the two loveliest of all. 

I can’t imagine any joy in life greater 
than sitting down in front of a mirror and 
buying any hat you choose without having 
first to consider the price ! There ’s no 
doubt about it, Daddy; New York would 
rapidly undermine this fine, stoical charac- 
ter which the* John Grier Home so patiently 
built up. 

And after we ’d finished our shopping, 
we met Master Jervie at Sherry’s. I sup- 
pose you’ve been in Sherry’s? Picture 
that, then picture the dining-room of the 
John Grier Home with its oilcloth-covered 
140 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


tables, and white crockery that you can't 
break, and wooden-handled knives and 
forks; and fancy the way I felt! 

I ate my fish with the wrong fork, but 
the waiter very kindly gave me another so 
that nobody noticed. 

And after luncheon we went to the thea- 
ter — it was dazzling, marvelous, unbelieva- 
ble — I dream about it every night. 

Is n’t Shakespeare wonderful ? 

“ Hamlet ” is so much better on the stage 
than when we analyze it in class; I ap- 
preciated it before, but now, dear me ! 

I think, if you don’t mind, that I ’d rather 
be an actress than a writer. Would n’t you 
like me to leave college and go into a dra- 
matic school ? And then I ’ll send you a 
box for all my performances, and smile at 
you across the footlights. Only wear a red 
rose in your buttonhole, please, so I ’ll 
surely smile at the right man. It would be 
an awfully embarrassing mistake if I picked 
out the wrong one. 

141 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


We came back Saturday night and had 
our dinner in the train, at little tables with 
pink lamps and Hegro waiters. I never 
heard of meals being served in trains before, 
and I inadvertently said so. 

“ Where on earth were you brought up ? ” 
said Julia to me. 

“ In a village,” said I, meekly to Julia. 

“ But did n’t you ever travel ? ” said she 
to me. 

“ Not till I came to college, and then it 
was only a hundred and sixty miles and we 
did n’t eat,” said I to her. 

She ’s getting quite interested in me, be- 
cause I say such funny things. I try hard 
not to, but they do pop out when I ’m sur- 
prised — and I ’m surprised most of the 
time. It ’s a dizzying experience, Daddy, 
to pass eighteen years in the John Grier 
Home, and then suddenly to be plunged into 
the WORLD. 

But I ’m getting acclimated. I don’t 
make such awful mistakes as I did; and I 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


don’t feel uncomfortable any more with the 
other girls. I used to squirm whenever 
people looked at me. I felt as though they 
saw right through my sham new clothes 
to the checked ginghams underneath. But 
I ’m not letting the ginghams bother me 
any more. Sufficient unto yesterday is the 
evil thereof. 

I forgot to tell you about our flowers. 
Master Jervie gave us each a big bunch 
of violets and lilies-of-the-valley. Was n’t 
that sweet of him? I never used to care 
much for men — judging by Trustees — 
but I ’m changing my mind. 

Eleven pages — this is a letter! Have 
courage. I ’m going to stop. 

Yours always, 

Judy. 


143 


April ioth. 


JDear Mr. Rich-Man, 

Here ’s your check for fifty dollars. 
Thank you very much, but I do not feel 
that I can keep it. My allowance is suf- 
ficient to afford all of the hats that I need. 
I am sorry that I wrote all that silly stuff 
about the millinery shop; it’s just that I 
had never seen anything like it before. 

However, I was n’t begging ! And I 
would rather not accept any more charity 
than I have to. 

Sincerely yours, 
Jerusha Abbott. 


144 


April nth. 


Dearest Daddy, 

Will you please forgive me for the letter 
I wrote you yesterday? After I posted it 
I was sorry, and tried to get it back, but 
that beastly mail clerk would n’t give it to 
me. 

It’s the middle of the night now; I’ve 
been awake for hours thinking what a 
Worm I am — what a Thousand-legged 
Worm — and that ’s the worst I can say ! 
I ’ve closed the door very softly into the 
study so as not to wake Julia and Sallie, 
and am sitting up in bed writing to you 
on paper torn out of my history note-book. 

I just wanted to tell you that I am sorry 
I was so impolite about your check. I 
know you meant it kindly, and I think 
you ’re an old dear to take so much trouble 
10 145 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


for such a silly thing as a hat. I ought to 
have returned it very much more graciously. 

But in any case, I had to return it. It ’s 
different with me than with other girls. 
They can take things naturally from people. 
They have fathers and brothers and aunts 
and uncles; but I can’t be on any such re- 
lations with any one. I like to pretend that 
you belong to me, just to play with the idea, 
but of course I know you don’t. I ’m 
alone, really — with my back to the wall 
fighting the world — and I get sort of 
gaspy when I think about it. I put it out 
of my mind, and keep on pretending; but 
don’t you see, Daddy? I can’t accept any 
more money than I have to, because some 
day I shall be wanting to pay it back, and 
even as great an author as I intend to be, 
won’t be able to face a perfectly tremendous 
debt. 

I ’d love pretty hats and things, but I 
mustn’t mortgage the future to pay for 
them. 


146 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

You ’ll forgive me, won’t you, for being 
so rude? I have an awful habit of writing 
impulsively when I first think things, and 
then posting the letter beyond recall. But 
if I sometimes seem thoughtless and un- 
grateful, I never mean it. In my heart I 
thank you always for the life and freedom 
and independence that you have given me. 
My childhood was just a long, sullen stretch 
of revolt, and now I am so happy every mo- 
ment of the day that I can’t believe it ’s 
true. I feel like a made-up heroine in a 
story-book. 

It ’s a quarter past two. I ’m going to 
tiptoe out to the mail chute and get this off 
now. You ’ll receive it in the next mail 
after the other; so you won’t have a very 
long time to think bad of me. 

Good night, Daddy, 

T. love you always, 

Judy. 



147 




May 4th. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Field Day last Saturday. It was a very 
spectacular occasion. First we had a 
parade of all the classes, with everybody 
dressed in white linen, the Seniors carry- 
ing blue and gold Japanese umbrellas, and 
the Juniors white and yellow banners. Our 
class had crimson balloons — very fetch- 
ing, especially as they were always getting 
loose and floating off — and the Freshmen 
wore green tissue-paper hats with long 
streamers. Also we had a band in blue 
uniforms hired from town. Also about a 
dozen funny people, like clowns in a circus, 
to keep the spectators entertained between 
events. 

Julia was dressed as a fat country man 
with a linen duster and whiskers and baggy 
148 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


umbrella. Patsy Moriarty ( Patricia, really. 
Did you ever hear such a name? Mrs. 
Lippett couldn’t have done better.) who 
is tall and thin was Julia’s wife in an 
absurd green bonnet over one ear. Waves 
of laughter followed them the whole length 
of the course. Julia played the part ex- 
tremely well. I never dreamed that a Pen- 
dleton could display so much comedy spirit 
— begging Master Jervie’s pardon; I don’t 
consider him a true Pendleton though, any 
more than I consider you a true Trustee. 

Sallie and I were n’t in the parade be- 
cause we were entered for the events. And 
what do you think? We both won! At 
least in something. We tried for the run- 
ning broad jump and lost; but Sallie won 
the pole-vaulting (seven feet three inches) 
and I won the fifty-yard dash (eight sec- 
onds). 

I was pretty panting at the end, but it 
was great fun, with the whole class waving 
balloons and cheering and yelling: 

149 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


What’s the matter with Judy Abbott? 

She ’s all right. 

Who’s all right? 

Judy Ab-bott ! 

That, Daddy, is true fame. Then trot- 
ting back to the dressing tent and being 
rubbed down with alcohol and having a 
lemon to suck. You see we ’re very pro- 
fessional. It ’s a fine thing to win an event 
for your class, because the class that wins 



the most gets the athletic cup for the year. 
The Seniors won it this year, with sevea 
events to their credit. The athletic asso- 

150 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ciation gave a dinner in the gymnasium to 
all of the winners. We had fried soft- 
shell crabs, and chocolate ice-cream molded 
in the shape of basket balls. 

I sat up half of last night reading “ Jane 
Eyre.” Are you old enough, Daddy, to 
remember sixty years ago? And if so, did 
people talk that way? 

The haughty Lady Blanche says to the 
footman, “ Stop your chattering, knave, 
and do my bidding.” Mr. Rochester talks 
about the metal welkin when he means the 
sky ; and as for the mad woman who laughs 
like a hyena and sets fire to bed curtains 
and tears up wedding veils and bites — it ’s 
melodrama of the purest, but just the same, 
you read and read and read. I can’t see 
how any girl could have written such a 
book, especially any girl who was brought 
up in a churchyard. There ’s something 
about those Brontes that fascinates me. 
Their books, their lives, their spirit. Where 
did they get it ? When I was reading about 

15 1 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


little Jane’s troubles in the charity school, 
I got so angry that I had to go out and 
take a walk. I understood exactly how she 
felt. Having known Mrs. Lippett, I could 
see Mr. Brocklehurst. 

Don’t be outraged, Daddy. I am not in- 
timating that the John Grier Home was 
like the Lowood Institute. We had plenty 
to eat and plenty to wear, sufficient water 
to wash in, and a furnace in the cellar. But 
there was one deadly likeness. Our lives 
were absolutely monotonous and unevent- 
ful. Nothing nice ever happened, except 
ice-cream on Sundays, and even that was 
regular. In all the eighteen years I was 
there I only had one adventure — when the 
woodshed burned. We had to get up in the 
night and dress so as to be ready in case 
the house should catch. But it did n’t catch 
and we went back to bed. 

Everybody likes a few surprises ; it ’s a 
perfectly natural human craving. But I 

152 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


never had one until Mrs. Lippett called me 
to the office to tell me that Mr. John Smith 
was going to send me to college. And 
then she broke the news so gradually that it 
just barely shocked me. 

You know, Daddy, I think that the most 
necessary quality for any person to have is 
imagination. It makes people able to put 
themselves in other people’s places. It 
makes them kind and sympathetic and un- 
derstanding. It ought to be cultivated in 
children. But the John Grier Home in- 
stantly stamped out the slightest flicker that 
appeared. Duty was the one quality that 
was encouraged. I don’t think children 
ought to know the meaning of the word; 
it ’s odious, detestable. They ought to do 
everything from love. 

Wait until you see the orphan asylum 
that I am going to be the head of! It ’s my 
favorite play at night before I go to sleep. 
I plan it out to the littlest detail — the 
153 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

meals and clothes and study and amuse- 
ments and punishments ; for even my 
superior orphans are sometimes bad. 

But anyway, they are going to be happy. 
I think that every one, no matter how many 
troubles he may have when he grows up, 
ought to have a happy childhood to look 
back upon. And if I ever have any chil- 
dren of my own, no matter how unhappy 
I may be, I am not going to let them have 
any cares until they grow up. 

(There goes the chapel bell — I ’ll finish 
this letter sometime.) 


Thursday. 

When I came in from laboratory this 
afternoon, I found a squirrel sitting on 
the tea table helping himself to almonds. 
These are the kind of callers we entertain 
now that warm weather has come and the 
window stays open — 


154 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 



Saturday morning. 

Perhaps you think, last night being Fri- 
day, with no classes to-day, that I passed a 
nice quiet, readable evening with the set 
of Stevenson that I bought with my prize 
money? But if so, you’ve never attended 
a girls’ college, Daddy dear. Six friends 
dropped in to make fudge, and one of them 
dropped the fudge — while it was still 
liquid — right in the middle of our best 
rug. We shall never be able to clean up 
the mess. 


155 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I have n’t mentioned any lessons of late ; 
but we are still having them every day. 
It ’s sort of a relief though, to get away 
from them and discuss life in the large — 
rather one-sided discussions that you and 
I hold, but that ’s your own fault. You are 
welcome to answer back any time you 
choose. 

I ’ve been writing this letter off and on 
for three days, and I fear by now vous etes 
bien bored! 

Good-by, mce Mr. M^xi, 

Judy. 



156 


Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith. 

Sir : Having completed the study of ar- 
gumentation and the science of dividing a 
thesis into heads, I have decided to adopt 
the following form for letter-writing. It 
contains all necessary facts, but no unnec- 
essary verbiage. 

I. We had writt n examinations this 
week in: 

A. Chemistry. 

B. History. 

II. A new dormitory is being built. 

A. Its material is: 

(a) red brick. 

(b) gray stone. 

Its capacity will be: 

(a) one dean, five instructors. 

(b) two hundred girls. 

157 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


(c) one housekeeper, three cooks, 
twenty waitresses, twenty cham- 
bermaids. 

III. We had junket for dessert to-night. 

IV. I am writing a special topic upon 
the Sources of Shakespeare’s Plays. 

V. Lou McMahon slipped and fell this 
afternoon at basket ball, and she : 

A. Dislocated her shoulder. 

B. Bruised her knee. 

VI. I have a new hat trimmed with : 

A. Blue velvet ribbon. 

B. Two blue quills. 

C. Three red pompons. 

VII. It is half-past nine. 

VIII. Good night. 

Judy. 


158 


June 2d. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

You will never guess the nice thing that 
has happened. 

The McBrides have asked me to spend 
the summer at their camp in the Adiron- 
dacks! They belong to a sort of club on 
a lovely little lake in the middle of the 
woods. The different members have houses 
made of logs dotted about among the trees, 
and they go canoeing on the lake, and take 
long walks through trails to other camps, 
and have dances once a week in the club 
house — Jimmie McBride is going to have 
a college friend visiting him part of the 
summer, so you see we shall have plenty of 
men to dance with. 

Was n’t it sweet of Mrs. McBride to ask 
159 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


me? It appears that she liked me when I 
was there for Christmas. 

Please excuse this being short. It is n’t 
a real letter; it ’s just to let you know that 
I ’m disposed of for the summer. 

Yours, 

In a very contented frame of mind, 

Judy. 


A 


160 




June 5th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Your secretary man has just written to 
me saying that Mr. Smith prefers that I 
should not accept Mrs. McBride’s invita- 
tion, but should return to Lock Willow the 
same as last summer. 

Why, why, why , Daddy? 

You don’t understand about it. Mrs. 
McBride does want me, really and truly. 
I ’m not the least bit of trouble in the house. 
I ’m a help. They don’t take up many 
servants, and Sallie and I can do lots of 
useful things. It ’s a fine chance for me to 
learn housekeeping. Every woman ought 
to understand it, and I only know asylum- 
keeping. 

There are n’t any girls our age at the 
camp, and Mrs. McBride wants me for a 
11 161 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


companion for Sallie. We are planning to 
do a lot of reading together. We are 
going to read all of the books for next 
year’s English and sociology. The Pro- 
fessor said it would be a great help if we 
would get our reading finished in the sum- 
mer ; and it ’s so much easier to remember 
it, if we read together and talk it over. 

Just to live in the same house with Sal- 
lie’s mother is an education. She ’s the 
most interesting, entertaining, companion- 
able, charming woman in the world; she 
knows everything. Think how many sum- 
mers I ’ve spent with Mrs. Lippett and how 
I ’ll appreciate the contrast. You need n’t 
be afraid that I ’ll be crowding them, for 
their house is made of rubber. When they 
have a lot of company, they just sprinkle 
tents about in the woods and turn the boys 
outside. It ’s going to be such a nice, 
healthy summer exercising out of doors 
every minute. Jimmie McBride is going 
to teach me how to ride horseback and pad- 
162 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


die a canoe, and how to shoot and — oh, 
lots of things I ought to know. It ’s the 
kind of nice, jolly, care- free time that I ’ve 
never had; and I think every girl deserves 
it once in her life. Of course I ’ll do ex- 
actly as you say, but please, please let me 
go, Daddy. I ’ve never wanted anything 
so much. 

This is n’t Jerusha Abbott, the future 
great author, writing to you. It ’s just 
Judy — a girl. 


June 9th. 


Mr. John Smith. 

Sir : Yours of the 7th inst. at hand. In 
compliance with the instructions received 
through your secretary, I leave on Friday 
next to spend the summer at Lock Willow 
Farm. 

I hope always to remain, 

(Miss) Jerusha Abbott. 


164 


Lock Willow Farm, 

August Third. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

It has been nearly two months since I 
wrote, which was n’t nice of me, I know, 
but I have n’t loved you much this summer 
— you see I ’m being frank ! 

You can’t imagine how disappointed I 
was at having to give up the McBride’s camp. 
Of course I know that you ’re my guardian, 
and that I have to regard your wishes in all 
matters, but I could n’t see any reason. It 
was so distinctly the best thing that could 
have happened to me. If I had been 
Daddy, and you had been Judy, I should 
have said, “ Bless you, my child, run along- 
and have a good time; see lots of new peo- 
ple and learn lots of new things; live out 

165 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


doors, and get strong and well and rested 
tor a year of hard work.” 

But not at all! Just a curt line from 
your secretary ordering me to Lock Wil- 
Jow. 

It ’s the impersonality of your commands 
that hurts my feelings. It seems as though, 
if you felt the tiniest little bit for me the 
way I feel for you, you ’d sometimes send 
me a message that you ’d written with your 
own hand, instead of those beastly typewrit- 
ten secretary’s notes. If there were the 
slightest hint that you cared, I ’d do any- 
thing on earth to please you. 

I know that I was to write nice, long, de- 
tailed letters without ever expecting any 
answer. You ’re living up to your side of 
the bargain — I ’m being educated — and I 
suppose you ’re thinking I ’m not living up 
to mine! 

But, Daddy, it is a hard bargain. It is, 
really. I ’m so awfully lonely. You are 
the only person I have to care for, and you 
1 66 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


are so shadowy. You ’re just an imag- 
inary man that I ’ve made up — and prob- 
ably the real you is n’t a bit like my imag- 
inary you. But you did once, when I was 
ill in the infirmary, send me a message, and 
now, when I am feeling awfully forgotten, 
I get out your card and read it over. 

I don’t think I am telling you at all what 
I started to say, which was this : 

Although my feelings are still hurt, for 
it is very humiliating to be picked up and 
moved about by an arbitrary, peremptory, 
unreasonable, omnipotent, invisible Provi- 
dence, still, when a man has been as kind 
and generous and thoughtful as you have 
heretofore been toward me, I suppose he 
has a right to be an arbitrary, peremptory, 
unreasonable, invisible Providence if he 
chooses, and so — I ’ll forgive you and be 
cheerful again. But I still don’t enjoy get- 
ting Sallie’s letters about the good times 
tL^y are having in camp! 

167 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


However — we will draw a veil over that 
and begin again. 

I ’ve been writing and writing this sum- 
mer; four short stories finished and sent to 
four different magazines. So you see I ’m 
trying to be an author. I have a work- 
room fixed in a corner of the attic where 
Master Jervie used to have his rainy-day 
playroom. It ’s in a cool, breezy corner 
with two dormer windows, and shaded by 
a maple tree with a family of red squirrels 
living in a hole. 

I ’ll write a nicer letter in a few days and 
tell you all the farm news. 

We need rain. 

Yours as ever, 

Judy. 


i 68 


& 


August ioth. 

Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Sir : I address you from the second 
crotch in the willow tree by the pool in the 
pasture. There ’s a frog croaking under- 
neath, a locust singing overhead and two 
little “ devil down-heads ” darting up and 
down the trunk. I ’ve been here for an 
hour; it’s a very comfortable crotch, es- 
pecially after being upholstered with two 
sofa cushions. I came up with a pen and 
tablet hoping to write an immortal short 
story, but I ’ve been having a dreadful time 
with my heroine — I can't make her behave 
as I want her to behave ; so I ’ve abandoned 
her for the moment, and am writing to 
you. (Not much relief though, for I can’t 
make you behave as I want you to, either.) 

If you are in that dreadful New York,, 
169 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I wish I could send you some of this lovely, 
breezy, sunshiny outlook. The country is 
Heaven after 3, week of rain. 

Speaking of Heaven — do you remem- 
ber Mr. Kellogg that I told you about last 
summer? — the minister of the little white 
church at the Corners. Well, the poor old 
soul is dead — last winter of pneumonia. 
I went half-a-dozen times to hear him preach 
and got very well acquainted with his the- 
ology. He believed to the end, exactly the 
same things he started with. It seems to 
me that a man who can think straight along 
for forty-seven years without changing a 
single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as 
a curiosity. I hope he is enjoying his harp 
and golden crown; he was so perfectly sure 
of finding them! There’s a new young 
man, very up and coming, in his place. The 
congregation is pretty dubious, especially the 
faction led by Deacon Cummings. It looks 
as though there was going to be an awful 
split in the church. We don’t care for 
170 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

innovations in religion in this neighbor- 
hood. 

During our week of rain I sat up in the 
attic and had an orgie of reading — Steven- 
son, mostly. He himself is more enter- 
taining than any of the characters in his 
books; I dare say he made himself into 
the kind of hero that would look well in 
print. Don’t you think it was perfect of 
him to spend all the ten thousand dollars 
his father left, for a yacht, and go sailing 
off to the South Seas? He lived up to his 
adventurous creed. If my father had left 
me ten thousand dollars, I ’d do it, too. 
The thought of Vailima makes me wild. I 
want to see the tropics. I want to see the 
whole world. I am going to some day — 
I am, really, Daddy, when I get to be a 
great author, or artist, or actress, or play- 
wright — or whatever sort of a great per- 
son I turn out to be. I have a terrible 
wanderthirst ; the very sight of a map makes 
me want to put on my hat and take an um- 
171 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


brella ^nd start. “ I shall see before I die 
the palms and temples of the South.” 


Thursday evening at twilight, sitting on 
the doorstep. 

Very hard to get any news into this let- 
ter! Judy is becoming so philosophical of 
late, that she wishes to discourse largely of 


t 7 







f ~y 't — V 

MF AN 

r v 


172 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


the world in general, instead of descending 
to the trivial details of daily life. But if 
you must have news, here it is: 

Our nine young pigs waded across the 
brook and ran away last Tuesday, and only 
eight came back. We don’t want to ac- 
cuse any one unjustly, but we suspect that 
Widow Dowd has one more than she ought 
to have. 

Mr. Weaver has painted his barn and his 
two silos a bright pumpkin yellow — a very 
ugly color, but he says it will wear. 

The Brewers have company this week; 
Mrs. Brewer’s sister and two nieces from 
Ohio. 



One of our Rhode Island Reds only 
brought off three chicks out of fifteen eggs. 


173 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


We can’t imagine what was the trouble. 
Rhode Island Reds, in my opinion, are a 
very inferior breed. I prefer Buff Orping- 
tons. 

The new clerk in the post-office at Bon- 
nyrigg Four Corners drank every drop of 
Jamaica ginger they had in stock — seven 
dollars’ worth — before he was discovered. 

Old Ira Hatch has rheumatism and can’t 
work any more; he never saved his money 
when he was earning good wages, so now 
he has to live on the town. 

There ’s to be an ice-cream social at the 
schoolhouse next Saturday evening. Come 
and bring your families. 

I have a new hat that I bought for 
twenty-five cents at the post-office. This is 
my latest portrait, on my way to rake the 
hay. 

It ’s getting too dark to see ; anyway, the 
news is all used up. 

Good night, 

Judy. 


* 


174 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 



Friday. 


Good morning! Here is some news! 
What do you think? You’d never, never, 


175 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


never guess who ’s coming to Lock Willow. 
A letter to Mrs. Semple from Mr. Pendle- 
ton. Lie *s motoring through the Berk- 
shires, and is tired and wants to rest on a 
nice quiet farm — if he climbs out at her 
doorstep some night will she have a room 
ready for him ? Maybe he ’ll stay one 
week, or maybe two, or maybe three ; he ’ll 
see how restful it is when he gets here. 

Such a flutter as we are in! The whole 
house is being cleaned and all the curtains 
washed. I am driving to the Corners this 
morning to get some new oilcloth for the 
entry, and two cans of brown floor paint 
for the hall and back stairs. Mrs. Dowd 
is engaged to come to-morrow to wash the 
windows (in the exigency of the moment, 
we waive our suspicions in regard to the 
piglet). You might think, from this ac- 
count of our activities, that the house was 
not already immaculate; but I assure you 
it was! Whatever Mrs. Semple’s limita- 
tions, she is a HOUSEKEEPER. 

176 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


But is n’t it just like a man, Daddy? He 
does n’t give the remotest hint as to whether 
he will land on the doorstep to-day, or two 
weeks from to-day. We shall live in a 
perpetual breathlessness until he comes — 
and if he does n’t hurry, the cleaning may 
all have to be done over again. 

There ’s Amasai waiting below with the 
buckboard and Grover. I drive alone — 



be worried as to my safety. - 

With my hand on my heart — farewell. 

Judy. 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


P. S. Is n’t that a nice ending? I got it 
©ut of Stevenson’s letters. 

Saturday. 

Good morning again ! I did n’t get this 
enveloped yesterday before the postman 
came, so I ’ll add some more. We have 
one mail a day at twelve o’clock. Rural 
delivery is a blessing to the farmers ! Our 
postman not only delivers letters, but he 
runs errands for us in town, at five cents 
an errand. Yesterday he brought me some 
shoe-strings and a jar of cold cream (I 
sunburned all the skin off my nose before 
I got my new hat) and a blue Windsor tie 
and a bottle of blacking all for ten cents. 
That was an unusual bargain, owing to the 
largeness of my order. 

Also he tells us what is happening in the 
Great World. Several people on the route 
take daily papers, and he reads them as he 
jogs along, and repeats the news to the 
ones who don’t subscribe. So in case a 
178 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


war breaks out between the United States 
and Japan, or the president is assassinated, 
or Mr. Rockefeller leaves a million dollars 
to the John Grier Home, you need n’t 
bother to write ; I ’ll hear it anyway. 

No sign yet of Master Jervie. But you 
should see how clean our house is — and 
with what anxiety we wipe our feet before 
we step in! 

I hope he ’ll come soon ; I am longing for 
some one to talk to. Mrs. Semple, to tell 
you the truth, gets sort of monotonous. 
She never lets ideas interrupt the easy flow 
of her conversation. It ’s a funny thing 
about the people here. Their world is just 
this single hilltop. They are not a bit uni- 
versal, if you know what I mean. It ’s ex- 
actly the same as at the John Grier Home. 
Our ideas there were bounded by the four 
sides of the iron fence, only I did n’t mind 
it so much because I was younger and was 
so awfully busy. By the time I ’d got all 
my beds made and my babies’ faces washed 
179 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and had gone to school and come home and 
had washed their faces again and darned 
their stockings and mended Freddie Per- 
kins’s trousers (he tore them every day of 
his life) and learned my lessons in between 
— I was ready to go to bed, and I did n’t 
notice any lack of social intercourse. But 
after two years in a conversational college, 
I do miss it ; and I shall be glad to see some- 
body who speaks my language. 

I really believe I ’ve finished, Daddy. 
Nothing else occurs to me at the moment — 
I ’ll try to write a longer letter next time. 

Yours always, 

Judy. 

P. S. The lettuce has n’t done at all well 
this year. It was so dry early in the sea- 
son. 


180 


August 25th. 

Well, Daddy, Master Jervie ’s here. 
And such a nice time as we ’re having ! At 
least I am, and I think he is, too — he has 
been here ten days and he does n’t show any 
signs of going. The way Mrs. Semple 
pampers that man is scandalous. If she 
indulged him as much when he was a baby, 
I don’t know how he ever turned out so 
well. 

He and I eat at a little table set on the 
side porch, or sometimes under the trees, 
or — when it rains or is cold — in the best 
parlor. He just picks out the spot he 
wants to eat in and Carrie trots after him 
with the table. Then if it has been an aw- 
ful nuisance, and she has had to carry the 
dishes very far, she finds a dollar under the 
sugar bowk 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


He is an awfully companionable sort of 
man, though you would never believe it to 
see him casually; he looks at first glance 
like a true Pendleton, but he is n’t in the 
least. He is just as simple and unaffected 
and sweet as he can be — that seems a 
funny way to describe a man, but it ’s true. 
He ’s extremely nice with the farmers 
around here; he meets them in a sort of 
man-to-man fashion that disarms them im- 
mediately. They were very suspicious at 
first. They did n’t care for his clothes ! 
And I will say that his clothes are rather 
amazing. He wears knickerbockers and 
pleated jackets and white flannels and rid- 
ing clothes with puffed trousers. When- 
ever he comes down in anything new, Mrs. 
Semple, beaming with pride, walks around 
and views him from every angle, and urges 
him to be careful where he sits down; she 
is so afraid he will pick up some dust. It 
bores him dreadfully. He ’s always say- 
ing to her : 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


“ Run along, Lizzie, and tend to your 
work. You can't boss me any longer. I ’ve 
grown up." 

It ’s awfully funny to think of that great, 
big, long-legged man (he’s nearly as long- 
legged as you, Daddy) ever sitting in Mrs. 
Semple’s lap and having his face washed. 
Particularly funny when you see her lap! 
She has two laps now, and three chins. 
But he says that once she was thin and 
wiry and spry and could run faster than 
he. 

Such a lot of adventures we’re having! 
We ’ve explored the country for miles, and 
I ’ve learned to fish with funny little flies 
made of feathers. Also to shoot with a 
rifle and a revolver. Also to ride horse- 
back — there ’s an astonishing amount of 
life in old Grove. We fed him on oats for 
three days, and he shied at a calf and almost 
ran away with me. 


183 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 




Wednesday. 


We climbed Sky Hill Monday afternoon. 
That ’s a mountain near here ; not an aw- 
fully high mountain, perhaps — no snow 
on the summit — but at least you are pretty 
breathless when you reach the top. The 
lower slopes are covered with woods, but 
the top is just piled rocks and open moor. 
We stayed up for the sunset and built a fire 
and cooked our supper. Master Jervie did 
184 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


the cooking; he said he knew how better 
than me — and he did, too, because he ’s 
used to camping. Then we came down by 
moonlight, and, when we reached the wood 
trail where it was dark, by the light of an 
electric bulb that he had in his pocket. It 
was such fun! He laughed and joked all 
the way and talked about interesting things. 
He ’s read all the books I Ve ever read, 
and a lot of others besides. It ’s astonish- 
ing how many different things he knows. 

We went for a long tramp this morning 
and got caught in a storm. Our clothes 
were drenched before we reached home — 
but our spirits not even damp. You should 
have seen Mrs. Semple’s face when we 
dripped into her kitchen. 

“ Oh, Master Jervie — Miss Judy ! You 
are soaked through. Dear ! Dear ! What 
shall I do? That nice new coat is per- 
fectly ruined.” 

She was awfully funny; you would have 
thought that we were ten years old, and 

i85 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


she a distracted mother. I was afraid for 
a while that we were n’t going to get any 
jam for tea. 

Saturday. 

I started this letter ages ago, but I 
have n’t had a second to finish it. 

Is n’t this a nice thought from Steven- 
son? 

The world is so full of a number of things, 

I am sure we should all be as happy as kings. 

It ’s true, you know. The world is full 
of happiness, and plenty to go round, if 
you are only willing to take the kind that 
comes your way. The whole secret is in 
being pliable. In the country, especially, 
there are such a lot of entertaining things. 
I can walk over everybody’s land, and look 
at everybody’s view, and dabble in every- 
body’s brook; and enjoy it just as much as 
though I owned the land — and with no 
taxes to pay! 


1 86 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


It ’s Sunday night now, about eleven 
o’clock, and I am supposed to be getting 
some beauty sleep, but I had black coffee 
for dinner, so — no beauty sleep for me ! 

This morning, said Mrs. Semple to 
Mr. Pendleton, with a very determined 
accent : 

“We have to leave here at a quarter past 
ten in order to get to church by eleven.” 

“ Very well, Lizzie,” said Master Jervie, 
“ you have the surrey ready, and if I’m 
not dressed, just go on without waiting.” 

“ We ’ll wait,” said she. 

“ As you please,” said he, “ only don’t 
keep the horses standing too long.” 

Then while she was dressing, he told 
Carrie to pack up a lunch, and he told me 
to scramble into my walking clothes; and 
we slipped out the back way and went fish- 
ing. 

It discommoded the household dreadfully, 
because Lock Willow of a Sunday dines at 
two. But he ordered dinner at seven — 
187 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


he orders meals whenever he chooses; you 
would think the place were a restaurant — 
and that kept Carrie and Amasai from 
going driving. But he said it was all the 
better because it wasn’t proper for them 
to go driving without a chaperon; and any- 
way, he wanted the horses himself to take 
me driving. Did you ever hear anything 
so funny? 

And poor Mrs. Semple believes that peo- 
ple who go fishing on Sundays, go after- 
wards to a sizzling hot hell! She is aw- 
fully troubled to think that she did n’t train 
him better when he was small and helpless 
and she had the chance. Besides — she 
wished to show him off in church. 

Anyway, we had our fishing (he caught 
four little ones) and we cooked them on a 
camp-fire for lunch. They kept falling off 
our spiked sticks into the fire, so they tasted 
a little ashy, but we ate them. We got 
home at four and went driving at five and 
1 88 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


had dinner at seven, and at ten I was sent 
to bed — and here I am, writing to you. 

I am getting a little sleepy though. 

Good night. 

Here is a picture of the one fish I caught. 



189 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 



Ship ahoy , Cap’n Long-Legs! 

Avast! Belay! Yo, ho, ho, and a bot- 
tle of rum. Guess what I ’m reading ? Our 
conversation these past two days has been 
nautical and piratical. Isn’t “Treasure 
Island ” fun ? Did you ever read it, or 
was n’t it written when you were a boy ? 
Stevenson only got thirty pounds for the 
serial rights — I don’t believe it pays to be 
a great author. Maybe I ’ll teach school. 

Excuse me for filling my letters so full 
of Stevenson; my mind is very much en- 
gaged with him at present. He comprises 
Lock Willow’s library. 

190 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I Ve been writing this letter for two 
weeks, and I think it ’s about long enough. 
Never say, Daddy, that I don’t give details. 
I wish you were here, too; we’d all have 
such a jolly time together. I like my dif- 
ferent friends to know each other. I 
wanted to ask Mr. Pendleton if he knew 
you in New York — I should think he 
might; you must move in about the same 
exalted social circles, and you are both in- 
terested in reforms and things — but I 
could n’t, for I don’t know your real name. 

It ’s the silliest thing I ever heard of, not 
to know your name. Mrs. Lippett warned 
me that you were eccentric. I should think 
so ! 


Affectionately, 

Judy. 


P. S. On reading this over, I find that 
it is n’t all Stevenson. There are one or 
two glancing references to Master Jervie. 


191 


September ioth. 


Dear Daddy , 

He has gone, and we are missing him! 
When you get accustomed to people or 
places or ways of living, and then have them 
suddenly snatched away, it does leave an 
awfully empty, gnawing sort of sensation. 
I ’m finding Mrs. Semple’s conversation 
pretty unseasoned food. 

College opens in two weeks and I shall 
be glad to begin work again. I have 
worked quite a lot this summer though — 
six short stories and seven poems. Those 
I sent to the magazines all came back with 
the most courteous promptitude. But I 
don’t mind. It ’s good practice. Master 
Jervie read them — he brought in the mail, 
so I could n’t help his knowing — and he 
said they were dreadful. They showed 
192 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


that I did n’t have the slightest idea of what 
I was talking about. (Master Jervie 
doesn’t let politeness interfere with truth.) 
But the last one I did — just a little sketch 
laid in college — he said was n’t bad ; and 
he had it typewritten, and I sent it to a 
magazine. They ’ve had it two weeks ; 
maybe they ’re thinking it over. 

You should see the sky ! There ’s the 
queerest orange-colored light over every- 
thing. We ’re going to have a storm. 

It commenced just that moment with 
drops as big as quarters and all the shut- 
ters banging. I had to run to close win- 
dows, while Carrie flew to the attic with 
an armful of milk pans to put under the 
places where the roof leaks — and then, 
just as I was resuming my pen, I remem- 
bered that I ’d left a cushion and rug and 
hat and Matthew Arnold’s poems under a 
tree in the orchard, so I dashed out to get 
them, all quite soaked. The red cover of 
13 193 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


the poems had run into the inside ; “ Dover 
Beach ” in the future will be washed by pink 
waves. 

A storm is awfully disturbing in the 
country. You are always having to think 
of so many things that are out of doors and 
getting spoiled. 

Thursday. 

Daddy! Daddy! What do you think? 
The postman has just come with two let- 
ters. 

ist. — My story is accepted. $50. 

Alors! I’m an AUTHOR. 

2d. — A letter from the college secretary. 
I ’m to have a scholarship for two years 
that will cover board and tuition. It was 
founded by an alumna for “ marked pro- 
ficiency in English with general excellency 
in other lines.” And I ’ve won it ! I ap- 
plied for it before I left, but I did n’t have 
an idea I ’d get it, on account of my Fresh- 
man bad work in math, and Latin. But it 
194 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

seems I ’ve made it up. I am awfully glad. 
Daddy, because now I won’t be such a bur- 
den to you. The monthly allowance will 
be all I ’ll need, and maybe I can earn that 
with writing or tutoring or something. 

I ’m crazy to go back and begin work. 

Yours ever, 
Jerusha Abbott, 

Author of, “ When the Sophomores 
Won the Game.” For sale at all 
news stands, price ten cents. 


195 


September 26th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Back at college again and an upper class- 
man. Our study is better than ever this 
year — faces the South with two huge win- 
dows — and oh! so furnished. Julia, with 
an unlimited allowance, arrived two days 
early and was attacked with a fever of set- 
tling. 

We have new wall paper and Oriental 
rugs and mahogany chairs — not painted 
mahogany which made us sufficiently happy 
last year, but real. It *s very gorgeous, but 
I don’t feel as though I belonged in it ; I ’m 
nervous all the time for fear I ’ll get an ink 
spot in the wrong place. 

And, Daddy, I found your letter waiting 
for me — pardon — I mean your secre- 
tary’s. 


196 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Will you kindly convey to me a compre- 
hensible reason why I should not accept 
that scholarship? I don’t understand your 
objection in the least. But anyway, it 
won’t do the slightest good for you to ob- 
ject, for I’ve already accepted it — and 
I am not going to change! That sounds 
a little impertinent, but I don’t mean it 
so. 

I suppose you feel that when you set out 
to educate me, you ’d like to finish the work, 
and put a neat period, in the shape of a 
diploma, at the end. 

But look at it just a second from my 
point of view. I shall owe my education 
to you just as much as though I let you pay 
for the whole of it, but I won’t be quite 
so much indebted. I know that you don’t 
want me to return the money, but neverthe- 
less, I am going to want to do it, if I possi- 
bly can ; and winning this scholarship makes 
it so much easier. I was expecting to spend' 
the rest of my life in paying my debts, but 
197 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


now I shall only have to spend one-half of 
the rest of it. 

I hope you understand my position and 
won’t be cross. The allowance I shall still 
most gratefully accept. It requires an al- 
lowance to live up to Julia and her furni- 
ture! I wish that she had been reared to 
simpler tastes, or else that she were not my 
room-mate. 

This isn’t much of a letter; I meant to 
have written a lot — but I ’ve been hem- 
ming four window curtains and three por- 
tieres (I’m glad you can’t see the length 
of the stitches) and polishing a brass desk 
set with tooth powder (very uphill work) 
and sawing off picture wire with manicure 
scissors, and unpacking four boxes of 
books, and putting away two trunk fuls of 
clothes (it doesn’t seem believable that 
Jerusha Abbott owns two trunks full of 
clothes, but she does!) and welcoming 
back fifty dear friends in between. 

Opening day is a joyous occasion! 

198 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

Good night, Daddy dear, and don’t be 
annoyed because your chick is wanting to 
scratch for herself. She ’s growing up 
into an awfully energetic little hen — with 
a very determined cluck and lots of beauti- 
ful feathers (all due to you). 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 


199 


September 30th. 


Dear Daddy, 

Are you still harping on that scholarship? 
I never knew a man so obstinate and stub- 
born and unreasonable, and tenacious, and 
bull-doggish, and unable-to-see-other-peo- 
ple’s-points-of-view as you. 

You prefer that I should not be accept- 
ing favors from strangers. 

Strangers ! — And what are you, pray ? 

Is there any one in the world that I know 
less? I shouldn’t recognize you if I met 
you on the street. Now, you see, if you 
had been a sane, sensible person and had 
written nice, cheering, fatherly letters to 
your little Judy, and had come occasionally 
and patted her on the head, and had said 
you were glad she was such a good girl — 
Then, perhaps, she would n’t have flouted 


200 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


you in your old age, but would have obeyed 
your slightest wish like the dutiful daughter 
she was meant to be. 

Strangers indeed! You live in a glass 
house, Mr. Smith. 

And besides, this is n’t a favor ; it ’s like 
a prize — I earned it by hard work. If 
nobody had been good enough in English, 
the committee would n’t have awarded the 
scholarship ; some years they don’t. Also — 
But what ’s the use of arguing with a man? 
You belong, Mr. Smith, to a sex devoid of 
a sense of logic. To bring a man into line, 
there are just two methods : one must either 
coax or be disagreeable. I scorn to coax 
men for what I wish. Therefore, I must 
be disagreeable. 

I refuse, sir, to give up the scholarship; 
and if you make any more fuss, I won’t ac- 
cept the monthly allowance either, but will 
wear myself into a nervous wreck tutoring 
stupid Freshmen. 

That is my ultimatum! 


201 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


And listen — I have a further thought. 
Since you are so afraid that by taking this 
scholarship, I am depriving some one else 
of an education, I know a way out. You 
can apply the money that you would have 
spent for me, toward educating some other 
little girl from the John Grier Home. 
Don’t you think that ’s a nice idea ? Only, 
Daddy, educate the new girl as much as you 
choose, but please don’t like her any better 
than me. 

I trust that your secretary won’t be hurt 
because I pay so little attention to the sug- 
gestions offered in his letter, but I can’t help 
it if he is. He ’s a spoiled child, Daddy. 
I ’ve meekly given in to his whims hereto- 
fore, but this time I intend to be FIRM. 

Yours, 

With a Mind, 

Completely and Irrevocably and 
World- without-End Made-up. 

Jerusha Abbott. 


202 


November 9th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I started down town to-day to buy a bot- 
tle of shoe blacking and some collars and 
the material for a new blouse and a jar of 
violet cream and a cake of Castile soap — 
all very necessary ; I could n’t be happy an- 
other day without them — and when I tried 
to pay the car fare, I found that I had left 
my purse in the pocket of my other coat. 
So I had to get out and take the next car, 
and was late for gymnasium. 

It ’s a dreadful thing to have no memory 
and two coats! 

Julia Pendleton has invited me to visit 
her for the Christmas holidays. How does 
that strike you, Mr. Smith? Fancy Jerusha 
Abbott, of the John Grier Home, sitting at 
203 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


the tables of the rich. I don’t know why 
Julia wants me — she seems to be getting 
quite attached to me of late. I should, to 
tell the truth, very much prefer going to 
Sallie’s, but Julia asked me first, so if I go 
anywhere, it must be to New York instead 
of to Worcester. I ’m rather awed at the 
prospect of meeting Pendletons en masse, 
and also I ’d have to get a lot of new 
clothes — so. Daddy dear, if you write that 
you would prefer having me remain quietly 
at college, I will bow to your wishes with 
my usual sweet docility. 

I ’m engaged at odd moments with the 
“ Life and Letters of Thomas Huxley ” — 
it makes nice, light reading to pick up be- 
tween times. Do you know what an arch- 
aeopteryx is ? It’s a bird. And a stere- 
ognathus? I’m not sure myself but I 
think it’s a missing link, like a bird with 
teeth or a lizard with wings. No, it is n’t 
either; I’ve just looked in the book. It’s 
a mesozoic mammal. 


204 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


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I Ve elected economics this year — very 
illuminating subject. When I finish that 
I ’m going to take Charity and Reform ; 
then, Mr. Trustee, I 'll know just how an 
orphan asylum ought to be run. Don’t you 
think I ’d make an admirable voter if I had 
my rights? I was twenty-one last week. 
This is an awfully wasteful country to 
throw away such an honest, educated, con- 
scientious, intelligent citizen as I would be. 

Yours always, 

Judy. 


205 


December 7th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Thank you for permission to visit Julia 

— I take it that silence means consent. 

Such a social whirl as we ’ve been hav- 
ing! The Founder’s dance came last week 

— this was the first year that any of us 
could attend ; only upper classmen being 
allowed. 

I invited Jimmie McBride, and Sallie in- 
vited his room-mate at Princeton, who vis- 
ited them last summer at their camp — an 
awfully nice man with red hair — and 
Julia invited a man from New York, not 
very exciting, but socially irreproachable. 
He is connected with the De la Mater Chi- 
chesters. Perhaps that means something 
to you ? It does n’t illuminate me to any 
extent. 


206 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


However — our guests came Friday af- 
ternoon in time for tea in the senior cor- 
ridor, and then dashed down to the hotel 
for dinner. The hotel was so full that they 
slept in rows on the billiard tables, they say. 
Jimmie McBride says that the next time he 
is bidden to a social event in this college, 
he is going to bring one of their Adiron- 
dack tents and pitch it on the campus. 

At seven-thirty they came back for the 
President’s reception and dance. Our func- 
tions commence early! We had the men’s 
cards all made out ahead of time, and after 
every dance, we ’d leave them in groups 
under the letter that stood for their names, 
so that they could be readily found by their 
next partners. Jimmie McBride, for ex- 
ample, would stand patiently under “ M ” 
until he was claimed. (At least, he ought 
to have stood patiently, but he kept wander- 
ing off and getting mixed with “ R’s ” and 
“ S’s ” and all sorts of letters.) I found 
him a very difficult guest; he was sulky be- 
207 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


cause he had only three dances with me. 
He said he was bashful about dancing with 
girls he did n’t know ! 

The next morning we had a glee club 
concert — and who do you think wrote the 
funny new song composed for the occasion? 
It ’s the truth. She did. Oh, I tell you, 
Daddy, your little foundling is getting to 
be quite a prominent person! 

Anyway, our gay two days were great 
fun, and I think the men enjoyed it. Some 
of them were awfully perturbed at first at 
the prospect of facing one thousand girls; 
but they got acclimated very quickly. Our 
two Princeton men had a beautiful time — 
at least they politely said they had, and 
they ’ve invited us to their dance next 
spring. We ’ve accepted, so please don’t 
object, Daddy dear. 

Julia and Sallie and I all had new 
dresses. Do you want to hear about them? 
Julia’s was cream satin and gold embroid- 
208 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ery, and she wore purple orchids. It was 
a dream and came from Paris, and cost a 
million dollars. 

Sallie’s was pale blue trimmed with Per- 
sian embroidery, and went beautifully with 
red hair. It didn’t cost quite a million, but 
was just as effective as Julia’s. 

Mine was pale pink crepe de chine 
trimmed with ecru lace and rose satin. And 
I carried crimson roses which J. McB. sent 
(Sallie having told him what color to get). 
And we all had satin slippers and silk stock- 
ings and chiffon scarfs to match. 

You must be deeply impressed by these 
millinery details ! 

One can’t help thinking, Daddy, what a 
colorless life a man is forced to lead, when 
one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point 
and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are 
to him mere empty words. Whereas a 
woman, whether she is interested in babies 
or microbes or husbands or poetry or serv- 
x 4 209 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato 
or bridge — is fundamentally and always 
interested in clothes. 

It ’s the one touch of nature that makes 
the whole world kin. (That is n’t original. 
I got it out of one of Shakespeare’s plays.) 

However, to resume. Do you want me 
to tell you a secret that I ’ve lately discov- 
ered? And will you promise not to think 
me vain? Then listen: 

I ’m pretty. 

I am, really. I ’d be an awful idiot not 
to know it with three looking-glasses in the 
room. 

A Friend. 

P. S. This is one of those wicked anony- 
mous letters you read about in novels. 


210 


December 20th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

1 ’ve just a moment, because I must at- 
tend two classes, pack a trunk and a suit- 
case, and catch the four-o’clock train — 
but I could n’t go without sending a word 
to let you know how much I appreciate my 
Christmas box. 

I love the furs and the necklace and the 
liberty scarf and the gloves and handker- 
chiefs and books and purse — and*most of 
all I love you! But Daddy, you have no 
business to spoil me this way. I ’m only 
human — and a girl at that. How can I 
keep my mind sternly fixed on a studious 
career, when you deflect me with such 
worldly frivolities? 

I have strong suspicions now as to which 
one of the John Grier Trustees used to give 


211 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

the Christmas tree and the Sunday ice- 
cream. He was nameless, but by his works 
I know him! You deserve to be happy for 
all the good things you do. 

Good-by, and a very merry Christmas. 

Yours always, 

Judy. 

P. S. I am sending a slight token, too. 
Do you think you would like her if you 
knew her? 


January nth. 

I meant to write to you from the city. 
Daddy, but New York is an engrossing 
place. 

I had an interesting — and illuminating 
— time, but I ’m glad I don’t belong in 
such a family! I should truly rather have 
the John Grier Home for a background. 
Whatever the drawbacks of my bringing 
up, there was at least no pretense about it. 
I know now what people mean when they 
say they are weighed down by Things. 
The material atmosphere of that house was 
crushing; I didn’t draw a deep breath 
until I was on an express train coming 
back. All the furniture was carved and 
upholstered and gorgeous; the people I met 
were beautifully dressed and low-voiced 
and well-bred, but it ’s the truth, Daddy, I 
213 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


never heard one word of real talk from the 
time we arrived until we left. I don’t 
think an idea ever entered the front door. 

Mrs. Pendleton never thinks of anything 
but jewels and dressmakers and social en- 
gagements. She did seem a different kind 
of mother from Mrs. McBride! If I ever 
marry and have a family, I ’m going to 
make them as exactly like the McBrides as 
I can. Not for all the money in the world 
would I ever let any children of mine develop 
into Pendletons. Maybe it is n’t polite to 
criticize people you ’ve been visiting? If it 
is n’t, please excuse. This is very confi- 
dential, between you and me. 

I only saw Master Jervie once when he 
called at tea time, and then I did n’t have 
a chance to speak to him alone. It was sort 
of disappointing after our nice time last 
summer. I don’t think he cares much for 
his relatives — and I am sure they don’t 
care much for him! Julia’s mother says 
he ’s unbalanced. He ’s a Socialist — ex- 


214 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


cept, thank Heaven, he does n’t let his hair 
grow and wear red ties. She can’t imagine 
where he picked up his queer ideas; the 
family have been Church of England for 
generations. He throws away his money 
on every sort of crazy reform, instead of 
spending it on such sensible things as yachts 
and automobiles and polo ponies. He does 
buy candy with it though! He sent Julia 
and me each a box for Christmas. 

You know, I think I ’ll be a Socialist, 
too. You would n’t mind, would you. 
Daddy ? They ’re quite different from 
Anarchists; they don’t believe in blowing 
people up. Probably I am one by rights; 
I belong to the proletariat. I haven’t de- 
termined yet just which kind I am going 
to be. I will look into the subject over 
Sunday, and declare my principles in my 
next. 

I ’ve seen loads of theaters and hotels 
and beautiful houses. My mind is a con- 
fused jumble of onyx and gilding and 

215 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


mosaic floors and palms. I ’m still pretty 
breathless but I am glad to get back to col- 
lege and my books — I believe that I really 
am a student; this atmosphere of academic 
calm I find more bracing than New York. 
College is a very satisfying sort of life; the 
books and study and regular classes keep 
you alive mentally, and then when your 
mind gets tired, you have the gymnasium 
and outdoor athletics, and always plenty of 
congenial friends who are thinking about 
the same things you are. We spend a 
whole evening in nothing but talk — talk — 
talk — and go to bed with a very uplifted 
feeling, as though we had settled perma- 
nently some pressing world problems. 
And filling in every crevice, there is always 
such a lot of nonsense — just silly jokes 
about the little things that come up — but 
very satisfying. We do appreciate our 
own witticisms! 

It is n’t the great big pleasures that 
count the most ; it ’s making a great deal 
216 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

out of the little ones — I We discovered the 
true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that 
is to live in the now. Not to be forever 
regretting the past, or anticipating the 
future; but to get the most that you can 
out of this very instant. It *s like farm- 
ing. You can have extensive farming and 
intensive farming; well, I am going to have 
intensive living after this. I ’m going to 
enjoy every second, and I ’m going to 
know I ’m enjoying it while I ’m enjoying 
it. Most people don’t live; they just race. 
They are trying to reach some goal far 
away on the horizon, and in the heat of 
the going they get so breathless and panting 
that they lose all sight of the beautiful, 
tranquil country they are passing through; 
and then the first thing they know, they 
are old and worn out, and it does n’t make 
any difference whether they We reached the 
goal or not. I ’ve decided to sit down by 
the way and pile up a lot of little happi- 
nesses, even if I never become a Great 
217 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Author. Did you ever know such a 
philosopheress as I am developing into? 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 

P. S. It ’s raining cats and dogs to- 
night. Two puppies and a kitten have just 
landed on the window-sill. 


218 


Dear Comrade, 

Hooray! I’m a Fabian. 

That ’s a Socialist who ’s willing to wait. 
We don’t want the social revolution to 
come to-morrow morning; it would be too 
upsetting. We want it to come very grad- 
ually in the distant future, when we shall 
all be prepared and able to sustain the 
shock. 

In the meantime we must be getting 
ready, by instituting industrial, educational 
and orphan asylum reforms. 

Yours, with fraternal love, 

Judy. 

Monday, 3d hour. 


219 


February nth. 


Dear D. L. L., 

Don’t be insulted because this is so 
short. It isn’t a letter; it’s just a line 
to say that I ’m going to write a letter 
pretty soon when examinations are over. 
It is not only necessary that I pass, but pass 
WELL. I have a scholarship to live up 
to. 

Yours, studying hard, 

J. A. 


220 


March 5th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

President Cuyler made a speech this 
evening about the modern generation being 
flippant and superficial. He says that we 
are losing the old ideals of earnest en- 
deavor and true scholarship; and particu- 
larly is this falling-off noticeable in our dis- 
respectful attitude toward organized author- 
ity. We no longer pay a seemly deference 
to our superiors. 

I came away from chapel very sober. 

Am I too familiar, Daddy? Ought I to 
treat you with more dignity and aloofness? 
— Yes, I’m sure I ought. I’ll begin 
again. 

My dear Mr. Smith , 

You will be pleased to hear that I passed 
successfully my mid-year examinations, 


221 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and am now commencing work in the new 
semester. I am leaving chemistry — hav- 
ing completed the course in qualitative 
analysis — and am entering upon the study 
of biology. I approach this subject with 
some hesitation, as I understand that we 
dissect angleworms and frogs. 

An extremely interesting and valuable 
lecture was given in the chapel last week 
upon Roman Remains in Southern France. 
I have never listened to a more illuminating 
exposition of the subject. 

We are reading Wordsworth’s “ Tin- 
turn Abbey ” in connection with our course 
in English Literature. What an exquisite 
work it is, and how adequately it embodies 
his conception of Pantheism! The Ro- 
mantic movement of the early part of the 
last century, exemplified in the works of 
such poets as Shelley, Byron, Keats, and 
Wordsworth, appeals to me very much 
more than the Classical^ period that preceded 
222 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


it. Speaking of poetry, have you ever 
read that charming little thing of Tenny- 
son’s called “ Locksley Hall”? 

I am attending gymnasium very regu- 
larly of late. A proctor system has been 
devised, and failure to comply with the 
rules causes a great deal of inconvenience. 
The gymnasium is equipped with a very 
beautiful swimming tank of cement and 
marble, the gift of a former graduate. 
My room-mate, Miss McBride, has given 
me her bathing-suit (it shrank so that she 
can no longer wear it) and I am about to 
begin swimming lessons. 

We had delicious pink ice-cream for 
dessert last night. Only vegetable dyes 
are used in coloring the food. The college 
is very much opposed, both from esthetic 
and hygienic motives, to the use of aniline 
dyes. 

The weather of late has been ideal — 
bright sunshine and clouds interspersed 
223 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


with a few welcome snow-storms. I and 
my companions have enjoyed our walks to 
and from classes — particularly from. 

Trusting, my dear Mr. Smith, that this 
will find you in your usual good health, 

I remain, 

Most cordially yours, 

Jerusha AbbotTc 


224 


April 24th. 


Dear Daddy , 

Spring has come again! You should 
see how lovely the campus is. I think you 
might come and look at it for yourself. 
Master Jervie dropped in again last Fri- 
day — but he chose a most unpropitious 
time, for Sallie and Julia and I were just 
running to catch a train. And where do 
you think we were going? To Princeton, 
to attend a dance and a ball game, if you 
please! I didn’t ask you if I might go, 
because I had a feeling that your secretary 
would say no. But it was entirely regular; 
we had leave-of-absence from college, and 
Mrs. McBride chaperoned us. We had a 
charming time — but I shall have to omit 
details; they are too many and complicated. 

15 225 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Saturday. 

Up before dawn! The night watchman 
called us — six of us — and we made 
coffee in a chafing dish (you never saw so 
many grounds!) and walked two miles to 



the top of One Tree Hill to see the sun 
rise. We had to scramble up the last 
slope ! The sun almost beat us ! And per- 
226 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

haps you think we did n’t bring back ap- 
petites to breakfast! 

Dear me, Daddy, I seem to have a very 
ejaculatory style to-day; this page is pep- 
pered with exclamations. 

I meant to have written a lot about the 
budding trees and the new cinder path in 
the athletic field, and the awful lesson we 
have in biology for to-morrow, and the new 
canoes on the lake, and Catherine Prentiss 
who has pneumonia, and Prexy’s Angora 



kitten that strayed from home and has been 
boarding in Fergussen Hall for two weeks. 
227 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

until a chambermaid reported it, and about 
my three new dresses — white and pink 
and blue polka dots with a hat to match 
— but I am too sleepy. I am always mak- 
ing this an excuse, am I not? But a girl’s 
college is a busy place and we do get tired 
by the end of the day! Particularly when 
the day begins at dawn. 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 


228 


May 15th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Is it good manners when you get into 
a car just to stare straight ahead and not 
see anybody else? 

A very beautiful lady in a very beautiful 
velvet dress got into the car to-day, and 
without the slightest expression sat for 
fifteen minutes and looked at a sign ad- 
vertising suspenders. It does n’t seem 
polite to ignore everybody else as though 
you were the only important person 
present. Anyway, you miss a lot. While 
she was absorbing that silly sign, I was 
studying a whole car full of interesting 
human beings. 

The accompanying illustration is hereby 
reproduced for the first time. It looks like 
a spider on the end of a string, but it is n’t 
229 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


at all ; it ’s a picture of me learning to 
swim in the tank in the gymnasium. 



The instructor hooks a rope into a ring in 
the back of my belt, and runs it through a 
pulley in the ceiling. It would be a beau- 
tiful system if one had perfect confidence 
in the probity of one’s instructor. I ’m 
always afraid, though, that she will let 
the rope get slack, so I keep one anxious 
eye on her and swim with the other, and 
with this divided interest I do not make 
the, progress that I otherwise might. 

230 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Very miscellaneous weather we ’re hav- 
ing of late. It was raining when I com- 
menced and now the sun is shining. Sallie 
and I are going out to play tennis — 
thereby gaining exemption from Gym. 

A week later. 

I should have finished this letter long 
ago, but I did n’t. You don’t mind, do 
you, Daddy, if I ’m not very regular? I 
really do love to write to you; it gives me 
such a respectable feeling of having some 
family. Would you like me to tell you 
something? You are not the only man to 
whom I write letters. There are two 
others! I have been receiving beautiful 
long letters this winter from Master Jervie 
(with typewritten envelopes so Julia won’t 
recognize the writing). Did v you ever 
hear anything so shocking? And every 
week or so a very scrawly epistle, usually 
on yellow tablet paper, arrives from 
Princeton. All of which I answer with 


231 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


businesslike promptness. So you see — 
I am not so different from other girls — 
I get mail, too. 

Did I tell you that I have been elected 
a member of the Senior Dramatic Club? 
Very recherche organization. Only seven- 
ty-five members out of one thousand. Do 
you think as a consistent Socialist that I 
ought to belong? 

What do you suppose is at present en- 
gaging my attention in sociology? I am 
writing {figures vous!) a paper on the 
Care of Dependent Children. The Pro- 
fessor shuffled up his subjects and dealt 
them out promiscuously, and that fell to 
me. C’est dr ole ga n’ est pas ? 

There goes the gong for dinner. I ’ll 
mail this as I pass the chute. # 

Affectionately, 

j. 


232 


June 4th. 


Dear Daddy, 

Very busy time — commencement in ten 
days, examinations to-morrow; lots of 
studying, lots of packing, and the outdoors 
world so lovely that it hurts you to stay 
inside. 

But never mind, vacation ’s coming. 
Julia is going abroad this summer — it 
makes the fourth time. No doubt about 
it, Daddy, goods are not distributed evenly. 
Sallie, as usual, goes to the Adirondacks. 
And what do you think I am going to do? 
You may have three guesses. Lock Wil- 
low? Wrong. The Adirondacks with 
Sallie? Wrong. (I’ll never attempt that 
again; I was discouraged last year.) 
Can’t you guess anything else? You’re 
not very inventive. I ’ll tell you, Daddy, 
233 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


if you ’ll promise not to make a lot of ob- 
jections. I warn your secretary ahead of 
time that my mind is made up. 

I am going to spend the summer at the 
seaside with a Mrs. Charles Paterson and 
tutor her daughter who is to enter college 
in the autumn. I met her through the 
McBrides, and she is a very charming 
woman. I am to give lessons in English 
and Latin to the younger daughter, too, 
but I shall have a little time to myself, and 
I shall be earning fifty dollars a month! 
Does n’t that impress you as a perfectly 
exorbitant amount? She offered it; I 
should have blushed to ask more than 
twenty-five. 

I finish at Magnolia (that ’s where she 
lives) the first of September and shall 
probably spend the remaining three weeks 
at Lock Willow — I should like to see the 
Semples again and all the friendly animals. 

How does my program strike you, 
Daddy? I am getting quite independent, 
234 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


you see. You have put me on my feet and 
I think I can almost walk alone by now. 

Princton commencement and our ex- 
aminations exactly coincide — which is an 
awful blow. Sallie and I did so want to 
get away in time for it, but of course that 
is utterly impossible. 

Good-by, Daddy. Have a nice summer 
and come back in the autumn rested and 
ready for another year of work. (That’s 
what you ought to be writing to me!) I 
have n’t an idea what you do in the sum- 
mer, or how you amuse yourself. I can’t 
visualize your surroundings. Do you play 
golf or hunt or ride horseback or just sit 
in the sun and meditate? 

Anyway, whatever it is, have a good time 
and don’t forget Judy. 


235 


June Tenth. 


Dear Daddy , 

This is the hardest letter I ever wrote, 
but I have decided what I must do, and 
there is n’t going to be any turning back. 
It is very sweet and generous and dear of 
you to wish to send me to Europe this 
summer — for the moment I was intoxi- 
cated by the idea ; but sober second thoughts 
said no. It would be rather illogical of me 
to refuse to take your money for college, 
and then use it instead just for amusement 1 
You must n’t get me used to too many lux- 
uries. One does n’t miss what one has 
never had; but it is awfully hard going 
without things after one has commenced 
thinking they are his — hers (English 
language needs another pronoun) by 
natural right. Living with Sallie and 
236 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Julia is an awful strain on my stoical 
philosophy. They have both had things 
from the time they were babies; they ac- 
cept happiness as a matter of course. The 
World, they think, owes them everything 
they want. Maybe the W orld does — in 
any case, it seems to acknowledge the debt 
and pay up. But as for me, it owes me 
nothing, and distinctly told me so in the 
beginning. I have no right to borrow on 
credit, for there will come a time when the 
World will repudiate my claim. 

I seem to be floundering in a sea of 
metaphor — but I hope you grasp my 
meaning? Anyway, I have a very strong 
feeling that the only honest thing for me 
to do is to teach this summer and begin to 
support myself. 


Magnolia, 

Four days later. 

I ’d got just that much written, when — 
what do you think happened? The maid 
237 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


arrived with Master Jervie’s card. He is 
going abroad too this summer; not with 
Julia and her family but entirely by himself. 
I told him that you had invited me to go 
with a lady who is chaperoning a party 
of girls. He knows about you, Daddy. 
That is, he knows that my father and 
mother are dead, and that a kind gentleman 
is sending me to college ; I simply did n’t 
have the courage to tell him about the John 
Grier Home and all the rest. Lie thinks 
that you are my guardian and a perfectly 
legitimate old family friend. I have never 
told him that I didn’t know you — that 
would seem too queer ! 

Anyway, he insisted on my going to 
Europe. He said that it was a necessary 
part of my education and that I must n’t 
think of refusing. Also, that he would be 
in Paris at the same time, and that we 
would run away from the chaperon occa- 
sionally and have dinner together at nice, 
funny, foreign restaurants. 

238 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Well, Daddy, it did appeal to me! I 
almost weakened; if he hadn’t been so 
dictatorial, maybe I should have entirely 
weakened. I can be enticed step by step, 
but I won't be forced. He said I was a 
silly, foolish, irrational, quixotic, idiotic, 
stubborn child (those are a few of his 
abusive adjectives; the rest escape me) and 
that I did n’t know what was good for me ; 
I ought to let older people judge. We al- 
most quarreled — I am not sure but that 
we entirely did! 

In any case, I packed my trunk fast and 
came up here. I thought I ’d better see my 
bridges in flames behind me before I fin- 
ished writing to you. They are entirely 
reduced to ashes now. Here I am at Cliff 
Top (the name of Mrs. Paterson’s cottage) 
with my trunk unpacked and Florence (the 
little one) already struggling with first 
declension nouns. And it bids fair to be 
a struggle! She is a most uncommonly 
spoiled child; I shall have to teach her first 
239 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


how to study — she has never in her life 
concentrated on anything more difficult 
than ice-cream soda water. 

We use a quiet corner of the cliffs for a 
schoolroom — Mrs. Paterson wishes me to 
keep them out of doors — and I will say that 
/ find it difficult to concentrate with the blue 
sea before me and ships a-sailing by! And 
when I think I might be on one, sailing off to 
foreign lands — but I won’t let myself think 
of anything but Latin Grammar. 

The prepositions a or ab, absque, coram, cum, 
de, e or ex, prae, pro, sine, tenus, in, subter, sub 
and super govern the ablative. 

So you see, Daddy, I am already plunged 
into work with my eyes persistently set 
against temptation. Don’t be cross with 
me, please, and don’t think that I do not 
appreciate your kindness, for I do — 
always — always. The only way I can 
ever repay you is by turning out a Very 
Useful Citizen (Are women citizens? I 
240 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


don’t suppose they are). Anyway, a Very 
Useful Person. And when you look at me 
you can say, “ I gave that Very Useful Per- 
son to the world.” 

That sounds well, doesn’t it, Daddy? 
But I don t wish to mislead you. The 
feeling often comes over me that I am not 
at all remarkable ; it is fun to plan a 
career, but in all probability, I shan’t turn 
out a bit different from any other ordinary 
person. I may end by marrying an under- 
taker and being an inspiration to him in his 
work. 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 


/ 


1 6 


241 


August 19th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

My window looks out on the loveliest 
landscape — ocean-scape rather — nothing 
but water and rocks. 

The summer goes. I spend the morning 
with Latin and English and algebra and my 
two stupid girls. I don’t know how Marion 
is ever going to get into college, or stay in 
after she gets there. And as for Florence, 
she is hopeless — but oh ! such a little 
beauty. I don’t suppose it matters in the 
least whether they are stupid or not so long 
as they are pretty? One can’t help think- 
ing though, how their conversation will bore 
their husbands, unless they are fortunate 
enough to obtain stupid husbands. I sup- 
pose that ’s quite possible ; the world seems 
242 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


to be filled with stupid men ; I ’ve met a num- 
ber this summer. 

In the afternoon we take a walk on the 
cliffs, or swim, if the tide is right. I can 
swim in salt water with the utmost ease — 
you see my education is already being put 
to use ! 

A letter comes from Mr. Jervis Pendle- 
ton in Paris, rather a short, concise letter; 
I ’m not quite forgiven yet for refusing to 
follow his advice. However, if he gets 
back in time, he will see me for a few days 
at Lock Willow before college opens, and if 
I am very nice and sweet and docile, I shall 
(I am led to infer) be received into favor 
again. 

Also a letter from Sallie. She wants me 
to come to their camp for two weeks in 
September. Must I ask your permission, or 
have n’t I yet arrived at the place where I 
can do as I please? Yes, I am sure I have 
— I’m a Senior, you know. Having 
worked all summer, I feel like taking a lit— 
243 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


tie healthful recreation; I want to see the 
Adirondack^; I want to see Sallie; I want 
to see Sallie’s brother — he *s going to 
teach me to canoe — and (we come to my 
chief motive, which is mean) I want Master 
Jervie to arrive at Lock Willow and find me 
not there. 

I must show him that he can’t dictate to 
me. No one can dictate to me but you, 
Daddy — and you can’t always ! I ’m off 
for the woods. 

Judy. 


nr 

h 

'V 


244 


Camp McBride, 


September 6th. 

Dear Daddy , 

Your letter didn’t come in time (I am 
pleased to say). If you wish your in- 
structions to be obeyed, you must have 
your secretary transmit them in less than 
two weeks. As you observe, I am hen,, 
and have been for five days. 

The woods are fine, and so is the camp, 

d so is the weather, and so are the Mc- 
rides, and so is the whole world. I ’m 
ery happy! 

There ’s Jimmie calling for me to come 
canoeing. Good-by — sorry to have dis- 
obeyed, but why are you so persistent about 
not wanting me to play a little? When 
I ’ve worked all summer I deserve two 
245 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


weeks. You are awfully dog-in-the-man- 
gerish. 

However — I love you still, Daddy, in 
spite of all your faults. 


Judy. 


October 3rd. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Back at college and a Senior — also ed- 
itor of the Monthly. It does n’t seem pos- 
sible, does it, that so sophisticated a per- 
son, just four years ago, was an inmate 
of the John Grier Home? We do arrive 
fast in America ! 

What do you think of this? A note 
from Master Jervie directed to Lock 
Willow and forwarded here. He’s sorry 
but he finds that he can’t get up there this 
autumn; he has accepted an invitation to 
go yachting with some friends. Hopes 
I ’ve had a nice summer and am enjoying 
the country. 

And he knew all the time that I was with 
the McBrides, for Julia told him so! You 
247 


DADDY-LONGS-LEGS 


men ought to leave intrigue to women; you 
have n't a light enough touch. 

Julia has a trunkful of the most ravish- 
ing new clothes — an evening gown of rain- 
bow Liberty crepe that would be fitting 
raiment for the angels in Paradise. And 
I thought that my own clothes this year 
were unprecedentedly (is there such a 
word?) beautiful. I copied Mrs. Pater- 
son’s wardrobe with the aid of a cheap 
dressmaker, and though the gowns did n’t 
turn out quite twins of the originals, I was 
entirely happy until Julia unpacked. But 
now — I live to see Paris ! 

Dear Daddy, are n’t you glad you ’re not 
a girl? I suppose you think that the fuss 
we make over clothes is too absolutely 
silly? It is. No doubt about it. But it V 
entirely your fault. 

Did you ever hear about the learned Herr 
Professor who regarded unnecessary adorn- 
ment with contempt, and favored sensible, 
utilitarian clothes for women? His wife, 
248 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


who was an obliging creature, adopted 
“ dress reform.” And what do you think 
he did ? He eloped with a chorus girl. 

Yours ever, 

Judy. 

P. S. The chamber-maid on our corridor 
wears blue checked gingham aprons. I am 
going to get her some brown ones instead, 
and sink the blue ones in the bottom of the 
lake. I have a reminiscent chill every time 
I look at them. 


249 


November 17th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Such a blight has fallen over my literary 
career. I don't know whether to tell you 
or not, but I would like some sympathy — 
silent sympathy, please; don’t reopen the 
wound by referring to it in your next letter. 

I Ve been writing a book, all last winter 
in the evenings, and all summer when I 
was n’t teaching Latin to my two stupid 
children. I just finished it before college 
opened and sent it to a publisher. He kept 
it two months, and I was certain he was 
going to take it; but yesterday morning an 
express parcel came (thirty cents due) and 
there it was back again with a letter from 
the publisher, a very nice, fatherly letter 
— but frank! He said he saw from the 
address that I was still in college, and if I 
250 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


would accept some advice, he would sug- 
gest that I put all of my energy into my 
lessons and wait until I graduated before 
beginning to write. He enclosed his 
reader’s opinion. Here it is: 

“ Plot highly improbable. Characteriza- 
tion exaggerated. Conversation unnatural. 
A good deal of humor but not always in the 
best of taste. Tell her to keep on trying, 
and in time she may produce a real book.” 

Not on the whole flattering, is it, Daddy? 
And I thought I was making a notable ad- 
dition to American literature, I did truly. 
I was planning to surprise you by writing 
a great novel before I graduated. I col- 
lected the material for it while I was at 
Julia’s last Christmas. But I dare say the 
editor is right. Probably two weeks was 
not enough in which to observe the manners 
and customs of a great city. 

I took it walking with me yesterday 
afternoon, and when I came to the gas 
house, I went in and asked the engineer if 

251 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


I might borrow his furnace. He politely 
opened the door, and with my own hands 
I chucked it in. I felt as though I had 
cremated my only child ! 

I went to bed last night utterly dejected; 
I thought I was never going to amount to 
anything, and that you had thrown away 
your money for nothing. But what do 
you think ? I woke up this morning with a 
beautiful new plot in my head, and I Ve 
been going about all day planning my char- 
acters, just as happy as I could be. No 
one can ever accuse me of being a pessi- 
mist! If I had a husband and twelve chil- 
dren swallowed by an earthquake one day, 
I ”d bob up smilingly the next morning and 
commence to look for another set. 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 


252 


December 14th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I dreamed the funniest dream last night. 
I thought I went into a book store and the 
clerk brought me a new book named “ The 
Life and Letters of Judy Abbott.” I could 
see it perfectly plainly — red cloth binding 
with a picture of the John Grier Home on 
the cover, and my portrait for a frontispiece 
with, “Very truly 3'ours, Judy Abbott,” 
written below. But just as I was turning 
to the end to read the inscription on my 
tombstone, I woke up. It was very annoy- 
ing ! I almost found out who I ’m going 
to marry and when I ’m going to die. 

Don't you think it would be interesting 
if you really could read the story of your 
life — • written perfectly truthfully by an 
omniscient author ? And suppose you 
253 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


could only read it on this condition : that 
you would never forget it, but would have 
to go through life knowing ahead of time 
exactly how everything you did would 
turn out, and foreseeing to the exact hour 
the time when you would die. How many 
people do you suppose would have the 
courage to read it then? Or how many 
could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to 
e ipe from reading it, even at the price 
_ f having to live without hope and without 
<3 rrprises ? 

oLife is monotonous enough at best; you 
have to eat and sleep about so often. But 
imagine how deadly monotonous it would 
be if nothing unexpected could happen be- 
tween meals. Mercy ! Daddy, there ’s a 
blot, but I ’m on the third page and I can’t 
begin a new sheet. 

I ’m going on Avith biology again this 
year — very interesting subject; we’re 
studying the alimentary system at present. 
You should see how sweet a cross-section 
254 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

of the duodenum of a cat is under the micro- 
scope. 

Also we ’ve arrived at philosophy — in- 
teresting but evanescent. I prefer biology 
where you can pin the subject under discus- 
sion to a board. There ’s another ! And 
another! This pen is weeping copiously. 
Please excuse its tears. 

Do you believe in free will ? I do — 
unreservedly. I don’t agree at all wit L /foe 
philosophers who think that every action 
the absolutely inevitable and automatic 
sultant of an aggregation of remjte 
causes. That ’s the most immoral doctrine 
I ever heard — nobody would be to blame 
for anything. If a man believed in fatal- 
ism, he would naturally just sit down and 
say, “ The Lord’s will be done,” and con- 
tinue to sit until he fell over dead. 

I believe absolutely in my own free will 
and my own power to accomplish — and 
that is the belief that moves mountains. 
You watch me become a great author! I 
255 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


have four chapters of my new book finished 
and five more drafted. 

This is a very abstruse letter — does 
your head ache, Daddy ? I think we ’ll 
stop now and make some fudge. I ’m 
sorry I can’t send you a piece; it will be 
unusually good, for we ’re going to make 
it with real cream and three butter balls. 

Yours affectionately, 

Judy. 

P. S. We ’re having fancy dancing in 
gymnasium class. You can see by the ac- 
companying picture how much we look like 
a real ballet. The one on the end accom- 
plishing a graceful pirouette is me — I 
mean I. 



256 


December 26th. 


My dear , dear Daddy , 

Have n’t you any sense ? Don’t you 
know that you must n’t give one girl sev- 
enteen Christmas presents ? I ’m a Social- 
ist, please remember; do you wish to turn 
me into a Plutocrat? 

Think how embarrassing it would be if 
we should ever quarrel! I should have to 
engage a moving van to return your gifts. 



I am sorry that the necktie I sent was 
so wobbly; I knit it with my own hands 
(as you doubtless discovered from internal 
17 257 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


evidence). You will have to wear it on 
cold days and keep your coat buttoned up 
tight. 

Thank you, Daddy, a thousand times. I 
think you ’re the sweetest man that ever 
lived — and the foolishest! 

Judy. 

Here ’s a four-leaf clover from Camp 
McBride to bring you good luck for the 
New Year. 


January 9th. 

Do you wish to do something, Daddy, 
that will insure your eternal salvation ? 
There is a family here who are in awfully 
desperate straits. A mother and father 
and four visible children — the two older 
boys have disappeared into the world to 
make their fortune and have not sent any 
of it back. The father worked in a glass 
factory and got consumption — it ’s awfully 
unhealthy work — and now has been sent 
away to a hospital. That took all of their 
savings, and the support of the family falls 
upon the oldest daughter who is twenty- 
four. She dressmakes for $1.50 a day 
(when she can get it) and embroiders cen- 
terpieces in the evening. The mother is n’t 
very strong and is extremely ineffectual and 
259 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


pious. She sits with her hands folded, a 
picture of patient resignation, while the 
daughter kills herself with overwork and re- 
sponsibility and worry ; she does n’t see how 
they are going to get through the rest of 
the winter — and I don’t either. One 
hundred dollars would buy some coal and 
some shoes for the three children so that 
they could go to school, and give a little 
margin so that she needn’t worry herself 
to death when a few days pass and she 
doesn’t get work. 

You are the richest man I know. Don’t 
you suppose you could spare one hundred 
dollars? That girl deserves help a lot 
more than I ever did. I would n’t ask it 
except for the girl ; I don’t care much what 
happens to the mother — she is such a jelly- 
fish. 

The way people are forever rolling their 
eyes to heaven and saying, “ Perhaps it’s 
all for the best,” when they are perfectly 
260 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


dead sure it ’s not, makes me enraged. 
Humility or resignation or whatever you 
choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. 
I ’m for a more militant religion ! 

We are getting the most dreadful lessons 
in philosophy — all of Schopenhauer for 
to-morrow. The professor does n’t seem 
to realize that we are taking any other sub- 
ject. He’s a queer old duck; he goes 
about with his head in the clouds and blinks 
dazedly when occasionally he strikes solid 
earth. He tries to lighten his lectures with 
an occasional witticism — and we do our 
best to smile, but I assure you his jokes 
are no laughing matter. He spends his 
entire time between classes in trying to 
figure out whether matter really exists or 
whether he only thinks it exists. 

I ’m sure my sewing girl has n’t any 
doubt but that it exists ! 

Where do you think my new novel is? 
In the waste basket. I can see myself that 
261 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


it ’s no good on earth, and when a loving 
author realizes that, what would be the 
judgment of a critical public? 


Later. 

I address you, Daddy, from a bed of 
pain. For two days I ’ve been laid up with 
swollen tonsils; I can just swallow hot 
milk, and that is all. “ What were your 
parents thinking of not to have those ton- 
sils out when you were a baby ? ” the doctor 
wished to know. I ’m sure I have n’t an 
idea, but I doubt if they were thinking 
much about me. 

Yours, 

J. A. 

Next morning. 

I just read this over before sealing it. 
I don’t know why I cast such a misty at- 
mosphere over life. I hasten to assure you 
that I am young and happy and exuberant; 

262 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and I trust you are the same. Youth has 
nothing to do with birthdays, only with 
alivedness of spirit, so even if your hair is 
gray, Daddy, you can still be a boy. 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 


v 


263 


Jan. 12th. 


Dear Mr. Philanthropist , 

Your check for my family came yester- 
day. Thank you so much! I cut gym- 
nasium and took it down to them right after 
luncheon, and you should have seen the 
girl’s face ! She was so surprised and 
happy and relieved that she looked almost 
young; and she’s only twenty-four. Isn’t 
it pitiful? 

Anyway, she feels now as though all 
the good things were coming together. She 
has steady work ahead for two months — 
some one ’s getting married, and there ’s a 
trousseau to make. 

“ Thank the good Lord ! ” cried the 
mother, when she grasped the fact that 
that small piece of paper was one hundred 
dollars. 


264 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

“ It was n’t the good Lord at all,” said 
I, “ it was Daddy-Long-Legs.” (Mr. 
Smith, I called you.) 

“ But it was the good Lord who put it 
in his mind,” said she. 

“ Not at all ! I put it in his mind my- 
self,” said I. 

But anyway, Daddy, I trust the good 
Lord will reward you suitably. You de- 
serve ten thousand years out of purgatory. 

Yours most gratefully, 

Judy Abbott.. 


265 


Feb. 15th. 


May it please Your Most Excellent Majesty: 

This morning I did eat my breakfast upon 
a cold turkey pie and a goose, and I did 
send for a cup of tee (a china drink) of 
which I had never drank before. 

Don’t be nervous, Daddy — I have n’t 
lost my mind ; I ’m merely quoting Sam’l 
Pepys. We ’re reading him in connection 
with English History, original sources. 
Sallie and Julia and I converse now in the 
language of 1660. Listen to this; 

“ I went to Charing Cross to see Major 
Harrison hanged, drawn and quartered: he 
looking as cheerful as any man could do in 
that condition.” And this : “ Dined with 
my lady who is in handsome mourning for 
her brother who died yesterday of spotted 
fever.” 


266 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Seems a little early to commence enter- 
taining, doesn’t it? A friend of Pepys 
devised a very cunning manner whereby 
the king might pay his debts out of the sale 
to poor people of old decayed provisions. 
What do you, a reformer, think of that? 
I don’t believe we ’re so bad to-day as the 
newspapers make out. 

Samuel was as excited about his clothes as 
any girl; he spent five times as much on 
dress as his wife — that appears to have 
been the Golden Age of husbands. Is n’t 
this a touching entry? You see he really 
was honest. “ To-day came home my fine 
Camlett cloak with gold buttons, which cost 
me much money, and I pray God to make me 
able to pay for it.” 

Excuse me for being so full of Pepys; 
I ’m writing a special topic on him. 

What do you think, Daddy? The Self- 
Government Association has abolished the 
ten-o’clock* rule. We can keep our lights 
all night if we choose, the only requirement 
267 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


being that we do not disturb others — we 
are not supposed to entertain on a large 
scale. The result is a beautiful commentary 
on human nature. Now that we may stay 
up as long as we choose, we no longer 
choose. Our heads begin to nod at nine 
o’clock, and by nine-thirty the pen drops 
from our nerveless grasp. It ’s nine-thirty 
now. Good night. 

Sunday. 

Just back from church — preacher from 
Georgia. We must take care, he says, not 
to develop our intellects at the expense of 
our emotional natures — but methought it 
was a poor, dry sermon (Pepys again). It 
does n’t matter what part of the United 
States or Canada they come from, or what 
denomination they are, we always get the 
same sermon. Why on earth don’t they 
go to men’s colleges and urge the students 
not to allow their manly natures to be 
crushed out by too much mental application ? 

268 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


It ’s a beautiful day — frozen and icy and 
clear. As soon as dinner is over, Sallie and 
Julia and Marty Keene and Eleanor Pratt 
(friends of mine, but you don’t know them) 
and I are going to put on short skirts and 
walk ’cross country to Crystal Spring Farm 
and have a fried chicken and waffle supper, 
and then have Mr. Crystal Spring drive us 
home in his buckboard. We are supposed 
to be inside the campus at seven, but we are 
going to stretch a point to-night and make 
it eight. 

Farewell, kind Sir. 

I have the honour of subscribing myself, 
Your most loyall, dutifull, faithfull 
and obedient servant, 

J. Abbott. 


269 


March Fifth. 


Dear Mr. Trustee, 

To-morrow is the first Wednesday in the 
month — a weary day for the John Grier 
Home. How relieved they ’ll be when five 
o’clock comes and you pat them on the head 
and take yourselves off! Did you (individ- 
ually) ever pat me on the head, Daddy? I 
don’t believe so — my memory seems to be 
concerned only with fat Trustees. 

Give the Home my love, please — my 
truly love. I have quite a feeling of ten- 
derness for it as I look back through a haze 
of four years. When I first came to college 
I felt quite resentful because I ’d been robbed 
of the normal kind of childhood that" the 
other girls had had; but now, I don’t feel 
that way in the least. I regard it as a very 
unusual adventure. It gives me a sort of 
270 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


vantage point from which to stand aside and 
look at life. Emerging full grown, I get a 
perspective on the world, that other people 
who have been brought up in the thick of 
things, entirely lack. 

I know lots of girls (Julia, for instance) 
who never know that they are happy. They 
are so accustomed to the feeling that their 
senses are deadened to it, but as for me — 
I am perfectly sure every moment of my 
life that I am happy. And I ’m going to 
keep on being, no matter what unpleasant 
things turn up. I ’m going to regard them 
(even toothaches) as interesting experi- 
ences, and be glad to know what they feel 
like. “ Whatever sky ’s above me, I ’ve a 
heart for any fate.” 

However, Daddy, don’t take this new af- 
fection for the J. G. H. too literally. If I 
have five children, like Rousseau, I shan’t 
leave them on the steps of a foundling asy- 
lum in order to insure their being brought 
up simply. 


271 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Give my kindest regards to Mrs. Lippett 
(that, I think, is truthful; love would be a 
little strong) and don’t forget to tell her 
what a beautiful nature I ’ve developed. 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 


272 


Lock Willow, 

April 4th. 

Dear Daddy, 

Do you observe the postmark? Sallie 
and I are embellishing Lock Willow with 
our presence during the Easter vacation. 
We decided that the best thing we could do 
with our ten days was to come where it is 
quiet. Our nerves had got to the point 
where they would n't stand another meal in 
Fergussen. Dining in a room with four 
hundred girls is an ordeal when you are 
tired. There is so much noise that you 
can’t hear the girls across the table speak 
unless they make their hands into a mega- 
phone and shout. That is the truth. 

We are tramping over the hills and read- 
ing and writing, and having a nice, restful 

is 2 y 3 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


time. We climbed to the top of “ Sky Hill ” 
this morning where Master Jervie and I 
once cooked supper — it does n’t seem pos- 
sible that it was nearly two years ago. I 
could still see the place where the smoke of 
our fire blackened the rock. It is funny how 
certain places get connected with certain peo- 
ple, and you never go back without think- 
ing of them. I was quite lonely without 
him — for two minutes. 

What do you think is my latest activity, 
Daddy? You will begin to believe that I 
am incorrigible — I am writing a book. I 
started it three weeks ago and am eating it 
up in chunks. I ’ve caught the secret. Mas- 
ter Jervie and that editor man were right; 
you are most convincing when , you write 
about the things you know. .And this time 
it is about something that I do know — ex- 
haustively. Guess where it ’s laid ? In the 
John Grier Home ! And it ’s good, Daddy, 
I actually believe it is — just about the tiny 
little things that happened every day. I ’m 
274 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


a realist now. I ’ve abandoned romanti- 
cism ; I shall go back to it later though, when 
my own adventurous future begins. 

This new book is going to get itself fin- 
ished — and published ! You see if it 
does n’t. If you just want a thing hard 
enough and keep on trying, you do get it in 
the end. I ’ve been trying for four years 
to get a letter from you — and I have n’t 
given up hope yet. 

Good-by, Daddy dear, 

(I like to call you Daddy dear; it’s so 
alliterative. ) 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 

P. S. I forgot to tell you the farm news, 
but it ’s very distressing. Skip this post- 
script if you don’t want your sensibilities all 
wrought up. 

Poor old Grove is dead. He got so he 
could n’t chew and they had to shoot 
him. 


275 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Nine chickens were killed by a weasel or 
a skunk or a rat last week. 

One of the cows is sick, and we had to 
have the veterinary surgeon out from Bon- 
nyrigg Four Corners. Amasai stayed up 
all night to give her linseed oil and whisky. 
But we have an awful suspicion that the 
poor sick cow got nothing but linseed oil. 

Sentimental Tommy (the tortoise-shell 
cat) has disappeared; we are afraid he has 
been caught in a trap. 

There are lots of troubles in the world! 


276 


May 17th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

This is going to be extremely short be- 
cause my shoulder aches at the sight of a 
pen. Lecture notes all day, immortal novel 
all evening makes too much writing. 

Commencement three weeks from next 
Wednesday. I think you might come and 
make my acquaintance — I shall hate you if 
you don’t! Julia’s inviting Master Jervie, 
he being her family, and Sallie ’s inviting 
Jimmie McB., he being her family, but who 
is there for me to invite ? Just you and Mrs. 
Lippett, and I don’t want her. Please come. 

Yours, with love and writer’s cramp. 

Judy. 


277 


Lock Willow. 

June 19th. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

I ’m educated ! My diploma is in the bot- 
tom bureau drawer with my two best dresses. 
Commencement was as usual, with a few 
showers at vital moments. Thank you for 
your rosebuds. They were lovely. Mas- 
ter Jervie and Master Jimmie both gave me 
roses, too, but I left theirs in the bath tub 
and carried yours in the class procession. 

Here I am at Lock Willow for the sum- 
mer — forever maybe. The board is cheap ; 
the surroundings quiet and conducive to a 
literary life. What more does a struggling 
author wish? I am mad about my book. 
I think of it every waking moment, and 
dream of it at night. All I want is peace 
278 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


and quiet and lots of time to work (inter- 
spersed with nourishing meals). 

Master Jervie is coming up for a week 
or so in August, and Jimmie McBride is 
going to drop in sometime through the sum- 
mer. He ’s connected with a bond house 
now, and goes about the country selling 
bonds to banks. He ’s going to combine the 
“ Farmers’ National ” at the Corners and me 
on the same trip. 

You see that Lock Willow isn’t entirely 
lacking in society. I ’d be expecting to have 
you come motoring through — only I know 
now that that is hopeless. When you 
would n’t come to my commencement, I tore 
you from my heart and buried you forever. 

Judy Abbott, A.B. 


July 24th. 


Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Is n’t it fun to work — or don’t you ever 
do it ? It ’s especially fun when your kind 
of work is the thing you ’d rather do more 
than anything else in the world. I ’ve been 
writing as fast as my pen would go every 
day this summer, and my only quarrel with 
life is that the days are n’t long enough to 
write all the beautiful and valuable and en- 
tertaining thoughts I ’m thinking. 

I ’ve finished the second draft of my book 
and am going to begin the third to-morrow 
morning at half-past seven. It ’s the sweet- 
est book you ever saw — it is, truly. I think 
of nothing else. I can barely wait in the 
morning to dress and eat before beginning; 
then I write and write and write till sud- 
denly I ’m so tired that I ’m limp all over. 

280 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Then I go out with Colin (the new sheep 
dog) and romp through the fields and get a 
fresh supply of ideas for the next day. It s 
the most beautiful book you ever saw — 
Oh, pardon — I said that before. 

You don’t think me conceited, do you. 
Daddy dear? 

I ’m not, really, only just now I ’m in the 
enthusiastic stage. Maybe later on I ’ll get 
cold and critical and sniffy. No, I ’m sure 
I won’t ! This time I ’ve written a real 
book. Just wait till you see it. 

I ’ll try for a minute to talk about some- 
thing else. I never told you, did I, that 
Amasai and Carry got married last May? 
They are still working here, but so far as I 
can see it has spoiled them both. She used 
just to laugh when he tramped in mud or 
dropped ashes on the floor, but now — you 
should hear her scold ! And she does n’t 
curl her hair any longer. Amasai, who used 
to be so obliging about beating rugs and 
carrying wood, grumbles if you suggest such 
281 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


a thing. Also his neckties are quite dingy 
— black and brown, where they used to be 
scarlet and purple. I ’ve determined never 
to marry. It ’s a deteriorating process, evi- 
dently. 

There is n’t much of any farm news. The 
animals are all in the best of health. The 
pigs are unusually fat, the cows seem con- 
tented and the hens are laying well. Are 
you interested in poultry? If so, let me 
recommend that invaluable little work, “ 200 
Eggs per Hen per Year.” I am thinking of 
starting an incubator next spring and raising 
broilers. You see I ’m settled at Lock Wil- 
low permanently. I have decided to stay 
until I’ve written 114 novels like Anthony 
Trollope’s mother. Then I shall have 
completed my life work and can retire and 
travel. 

Mr. James McBride spent last Sunday 
with us. Fried chicken and ice-cream for 
dinner, both of which he appeared to appre- 
282 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


ciate. I was awfully glad to see him; he 
brought a momentary reminder that the 
world at large exists. Poor Jimmie is hav- 
ing a hard time peddling his bonds. The 
Farmers’ National at the Corners would n’t 
have anything to do with them in spite of 
the fact that they pay six per cent, interest 
and sometimes seven. I think he ’ll end by 
going home to Worcester and taking a job 
in his father’s factory. He ’s too open and 
confiding and kind-hearted ever to make a 
successful financier. But to be the manager 
of a flourishing overall factory is a very de- 
sirable position, don’t you think? Just now 
he turns up his nose at overalls, but he ’ll 
come to them. 

I hope you appreciate the fact that this 
is a long letter from a person with writer’s 
cramp. But I still love you, Daddy dear, 
and I ’m very happy. With beautiful 
scenery all about, and lots to eat and a com- 
fortable four-post bed and a ream of blank 
283 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


paper and a pint of ink — what more does 
one want in the world? 

Yours, as always, 

Judy. 

P. S. The postman arrives with some 
more news. We are to expect Master Jervie 
on Friday next to spend a week. That ’s a 
very pleasant prospect — only I am afraid 
my poor book will suffer. Master Jervie 
is very demanding. 


284 


August 27th. 


Dear Daddy-Long-Legs , 

Where are you, I wonder? 

I never know what part of the world you 
are in, but I hope you ’re not in New York 
during this awful weather. I hope you ’re 
on a mountain peak (but not in Switzerland; 
somewhere nearer) looking at the snow and 
thinking about me. Please be thinking 
about me. I ’m quite lonely and I want to 
be thought about. Oh, Daddy, I wish I 
knew you! Then when we were unhappy 
we could cheer each other up. 

I don’t think I can stand much more of 
Lock Willow. I ’m thinking of moving. 
Sallie is going to do settlement work in Bos- 
ton next winter. Don’t you think it would 
be nice for me to go with her, then we could 
have a studio together ? I could write while 
285 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


she settled and we could be together in the 
evenings. Evenings are very long when 
there ’s no one but the Semples and Car- 
rie and Amasai to talk to. I know ahead 
of time that you won’t like my studio idea. 
I can read your secretary’s letter now: 

“Miss Jerusha Abbott. 

‘ Dear Madam, 

“ Mr. Smith prefers that you remain at 
Lock Willow. 

“ Yours truly, 

“ Elmer H. Griggs.” 

I hate your secretary. I am certain that 
a man named Elmer H. Griggs must be 
horrid. But truly, Daddy, I think I shall 
have to go to Boston. I can’t stay here. 
If something does n’t happen soon, I shall 
throw myself into the silo pit out of sheer 
desperation. 

Mercy ! but it ’s hot. All the grass is 
286 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


burnt up and the brooks are dry and the 
roads are dusty. It has n’t rained for 
weeks and weeks. 

This letter sounds as though I had hydro- 
phobia, but I have n’t. I just want some 
family. 

Good-by, my dearest Daddy. 

I wish I knew you. 

Judy 0 


\ 


# 


287 


Lock Willow, 


September 19th. 

Dear Daddy , 

Something has happened and I need ad- 
vice. I need it from you, and from nobody 
else in the world. Would n’t it be possible 
for me to see you ? It ’s so much easier to 
talk than to write ; and I ’m afraid your sec- 
retary might open the letter. 

Judy. 

P. S. I ’m very unhappy. 


288 


Lock Willow, 


October 3d. 

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Your note written in your own hand — 
and a pretty wobbly hand ! — came this 
morning. I am so sorry that you have been 
ill ; I would n’t have bothered you with my 
affairs if I had known. Yes, I will tell you 
the trouble, but it ’s sort of complicated to 
write, and very private. Please don’t keep 
this letter, but burn it. 

Before I begin — here ’s a check for one 
thousand dollars. It seems funny, does n’t 
it, for me to be sending a check to you? 
Where do you think I got it? 

I ’ve sold my story, Daddy. It ’s going 
to be published serially in seven parts, and 
then in a book! You might think I ’d be 
289 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


wild with joy, but I ’m riot. I ’m entirely 
apathetic. Of course I ’m glad to begin pay- 
ing you — I owe you over two thousand 
more. It ’s coming in instalments. Now 
don’t be horrid, please, about taking it, be- 
cause it makes me happy to return it. I owe 
you a great deal more than the mere money, * 
and the rest I will continue to pay all my 
life in gratitude and affection. 

And now, Daddy, about the other thing; 
please give me your most worldly advice, 
whether you think I ’ll like it or not. 

You know that I ’ve always had a very 
special feeling toward you; you sort of rep- 
resented my whole family; but you won’t 
mind, will you, if I tell you that I have a 
very much more special feeli/ig for another 
man? You can probably guess without 
much trouble who he is. I suspect that my 
letters have been very full of Master Jervie 
for a very long time. 

I wish I could make you understand what 
he is like and how entirely companionable 
290 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


we are. We think the same about every- 
thing — I am afraid I have a tendency to 
make over my ideas to match his ! But he 
is almost always right ; he ought to be, you 
know, for he has fourteen years’ start of 
me. In other ways, though, he ’s just an 
overgrown boy, and he does need looking 
after — he hasn’t any sense about wearing 
rubbers when it rains. He and I always 
think the same things are funny, and that 
is such a lot; it’s dreadful when two 
people’s senses of humor are antagonistic. 
I don’t believe there ’s any bridging that 
gulf! 

And he is — Oh, well ! He is just him- 
self, and I miss him, and miss him, and 
miss him. The whole world seems empty 
and aching. I hate the moonlight because 
it ’s beautiful and he is n’t here to see it with 
me. But maybe you ’ve loved somebody, 
too, and you know? If you have, I don’t 
need to explain; if you haven’t, I can’t ex- 
plain. 


291 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Anyway, that ’s the way I feel — and I ’ve 
refused to marry him. 

I didn’t tell him why; I was just dumb 
and miserable. I could n’t think of anything 
to say. And now he has gone away imag- 
ining that I want to marry Jimmie McBride 
— I don’t in the least, I would n’t think of 
marrying Jimmie ; he is n’t grown up enough. : 
But Master Jervie and I got into a dreadful 
muddle of misunderstanding, and we both 
hurt each other’s feelings. The reason I 
sent him away was not because I did n’t care 
for Glim, but because I cared for him so 
much. I was afraid he would regret it in 
the future — and I could n’t stand that ! It 
did n’t seem right for a person of my lack 
of antecedents to marry into any such fam- 
ily as his. I never told him about the or- 
phan asylum, and I hated to explain that I 
did n’t know who I was. I may be dreadful , 
you know. And his family are proud — 
and I ’m proud, too ! 

Also, I felt sort of bound to you. After 
292 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


having been educated to be a writer, I must 
at least try to be one; it would scarcely be 
fair to accept your education and then go 
off and not use it. But now that I am 
going to be able to pay back the money, I 
feel that I have partially discharged that 
debt — besides, I suppose I could keep on 
being a writer even if I did marry. The 
two professions are not necessarily exclu- 
sive. 

I ’ve been thinking very hard about it. 
Of course he is a Socialist, and he has un- 
conventional ideas ; maybe he would n’t mind 
marrying into the proletariat so much as 
some men might. Perhaps when two peo- 
ple are exactly in accord, and always happy 
when together and lonely when apart, they 
ought not to let anything in the world stand 
between them. Of course I want to believe 
that ! But I ’d like to get your unemotional 
opinion. You probably belong to a Family 
also, and will look at it from a worldly point 
of view and not just a sympathetic, human 
293 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


point of view — so you see how brave I am 
to lay it before you. 

Suppose I go to him and explain that the 
trouble is n’t Jimmie, but is the John Grier 
Home — would that be a dreadful thing for 
me to do: It would take a great deal of 
courage. I ’d almost rather be miserable for 
the rest of my life. 

This happened nearly two months ago; 

I have n’t heard a word from him since he 
was here. I was just getting sort of accli- 
mated to the feeling of a broken heart, when 
a letter came from Julia that stirred me all 
up again. She said — very casually — that 
“ Uncle Jervis ” had been caught out all 
night in a storm when he was hunting in 
Canada, and had been ill ever since with * 

pneumonia. And I never knew it. I was 
feeling hurt because he had just disappeared 
into blankness without a word. I think he ’s 
pretty unhappy, and I know I am ! 

What seems to you the right thing for me 
to do? 

Judy. 

294 


October 6th. 


Dearest Daddy-Long-Legs, 

Yes, certainly I ’ll come — at half-past 
four next Wednesday afternoon. Of course 
I can find the way. I ’ve been in New York 
three times and am not quite a baby. I 
can’t believe that I am really going to see 
you — I Ve been just thinking you so long 
that it hardly seems as though you are a 
tangible flesh-and-blood person. 

You are awfully good, Daddy, to bother 
yourself with me, when you ’re not strong. 
Take care and don’t catch cold. These faM 
rains are very damp. 

Affectionately, 

Judy. 

P. S. I ’ve just had an awful thought. 
Have you a butler? I ’m afraid of butlers, 
295 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 

and if one opens the door I shall faint upon 
the step. What can I say to him? You 
did n't tell me your name. Shall I ask for 
Mr. Smith? 


296 


Thursday Morning. 

My very dearest Master-J ervie-Daddy-Long- 
Legs-P endlet on-Smith, 

Did you sleep last night? I did n’t. Not 
a single wink. I was too amazed and ex- 
cited and bewildered and happy. I don’t be- 
lieve I ever shall sleep again — or eat either. 
But I hope you slept; you must, you know,, 
because then you will get well faster and 
can come to me. 

Dear Man, I can’t bear to think how ill 
you ’ve been — and all the time I never knew 
it. When the doctor came down yesterday 
to put me in the cab, he told me that for 
three days they gave you up. Oh, dearest, 
if that had happened, the light would have 
gone out of the world for me. I suppose 
that some day — in the far future — one of 
us must leave the other ; but at least we shall 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


have had our happiness and there will be 
memories to live with. 

I meant to cheer you up — and instead I 
have to cheer myself. For in spite of being 
happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I ’m 
also soberer. The fear that something may 
happen to you rests like a shadow on my 
heart. Always before I could be frivolous 
and care- free and unconcerned, because I 
had nothing precious to lose. But now — I 
shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of 
my life. Whenever you are away from me 
I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that 
can run over you, or the sign-boards that 
can fall on your head or the dreadful, 
squirmy germs that you may be swallowing. 
My peace of mind is gone forever — but any- 
way, I never cared much for just plain peace. 

Please get well — fast — fast — fast. I 
want to have you close by where I can touch 
v you and make sure you are tangible. Such 
a little half hour we had together! I ’m 
.afraid maybe I dreamed it. If I were only 
298 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


a member of your family (a very distant 
fourth cousin) then I could come and visit 
you every day, and read aloud and plump 
up your pillow and smooth out those two 
little wrinkles in your forehead and make 
the corners of your mouth turn up in a nice 
cheerful smile. But you are cheerful again, 
aren’t you? You were yesterday before I 
left. The doctor said I must be a good 
nurse, that you looked ten years younger. 
I hope that being in love does n’t make 
every one ten years younger. Will you still 
care for me, darling, if I turn out to be only 
eleven ? 

Yesterday was the most wonderful day 
that could ever happen. If I live to be 
ninety-nine I shall never forget the tiniest 
detail. The girl that left Lock Willow at 
dawn was a very different person from the 
one who came back at night. Mrs. Semple 
called me at half-past four. I started wide 
awake in the darkness and the first thought 
that popped into my head was, “ I am going 
299 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


to see Daddy-Long-Legs ! ” I ate breakfast 
in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove 
the five miles to the station through the most 
glorious October coloring. The sun came 
up on the way, and the swamp maples and 
dogwood glowed crimson and orange and 
the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with 
hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and 
full of promise. I knew something was 
going to happen. All the way in the train 
the rails kept singing, “ You Ye going to see 
Daddy-Long-Legs.” It made me feel se- 
cure. I had such faith in Daddy’s ability to 
set things right. And I knew that some- 
where another man — dearer than Daddy — 
was wanting to see me, and somehow I had 
a feeling that before the journey ended I 
should meet him, too. And you see ! 

When I came to the house on Madison 
Avenue it looked so big and brown and for- 
bidding that I did n’t dare go in, so I walked 
around the block to get up my courage. But 
300 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


T need n’t have been a bit afraid ; your but- 
ler is such a nice, fatherly old man that he 
made me feel at home at once. “ Is this 
Miss Abbott?” he said to me, and I said, 
“ Yes,” so I did n’t have to ask for Mr. 
Smith after all. He told me to wait in the 
drawdng-room. It was a very somber, mag- 
nificent, man’s sort of room. I sat down 
on the edge of a big upholstered chair and 
kept saying to myself : 

“ I ’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs ! 
I ’m going to see Daddy-Long-Legs ! ” 

Then presently the man came back and 
asked me please to step up to the library. I 
was so excited that really and truly my feet 
would hardly take me up. Outside the door 
he turned and whispered, “ He ’s been very 
ill, Miss. This is the first day he ’s been 
allowed to sit up. You ’ll not stay long- 
enough to excite him?” I knew from the 
way he said it that he loved you — and I 
think he ’s an old dear ! 


301 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


Then he knocked and said, “ Miss Ab- 
bott,” and I went in and the door closed be- 
hind me. 

It was so dim coming in from the brightly 
lighted hall that for a moment I could 
scarcely make out anything ; then I saw a big 
easy chair before the fire and a shining tea 
table with a smaller chair beside it. And I 
realized that a man was sitting in the big 
chair propped up by pillows with a rug over 
his knees. Before I could stop him he rose 
— sort of shakily — and steadied himself by 
the back of the chair and just looked at me 
without a word. And then — and then — 
I saw it was you! But even with that I 
did n’t understand. I thought Daddy had 
had you come there to meet me for a sur- 
prise. 

Then you laughed and held out your hand 
and said, “ Dear little Judy, could n’t you 
guess that I was Daddy-Long-Legs ? ” 

In an instant it flashed over me. Oh, but 
I have been stupid ! A hundred little things 
302 


DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


might have told me, if I had had any wits. I 
would n’t make a very good detective, would 
I, Daddy? — Jervie? What must I call 
you ? Just plain Jervie sounds disrespectful, 
and I can’t be disrespectful to you! 

It was a very sweet half hour before your 
doctor came and sent me away. I was so 
dazed when I got to the station that I al- 
most took a train for St. Louis. And you 
were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to give 
me any tea. But we ’re both very, very 
happy, are n’t we ? I drove back to Lock 
Willow in the dark — but oh, how the stars 
were shining ! And this morning I ’ve been 
out with Colin visiting all the places that 
you and I went to together, and remember- 
ing what you said and how you looked. The 
woods to-day are burnished bronze and the 
air is full of frost. It ’s climbing weather. 
I wish you v/ere here to climb the hills with 
me. I am missing you dreadfully, Jervie 
dear, but it ’s a happy kind of missing; we ’ll 
be together soon. We belong to each other 
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DADDY-LONG-LEGS 


now really and truly, no make-believe. 
Does n’t it seem queer for me to belong to 
some one at last ? It seems very, very 
sweet. 

And I shall never let you be sorry for a 
single instant. 

Yours, forever and ever, 

Judy. 

P. S. This is the first love letter I ever 
wrote. Is n’t it funny that I know how ? 


THE END 


OTHER BOOKS BY JEAN WEBSTER 


JUST PATTY 

Just Patty — full of the joy of living, fun-loving, given 
to ingenious mischief for its own sake and the sheer 
delight it affords, warm-hearted, popular, pretty; with 
a delicious sense of humor and a delightful disregard 
for petty conventions, which are a source of joy to her 
college fellows and of perplexed wonder to the faculty. 
Illustrated. Price $1.20 net, postage 12 cents 

WHEN PATTY 
WENT TO COLLEGE 

A merry story of Patty and her mates in college. ‘ ‘ The 
girls are just nice, exuberant American girls, and are 
interested in golf and basket-ball and Welsh rabbits, 
and Richard Harding Davis’s stories and Gibson pic- 
tures.” Their talk is of the jolliest ; and their adven- 
tures are zestful and refreshing. 

Pictures by Williams. Price $1.50 

THE WHEAT PRINCESS 

A dramatic love-story of an American girl in Italy. 

Price $1.50 

JERRY JUNIOR 

A jolly love-story; the leading characters, Americans; 
the scenes laid in Italy. Full of fresh and sparkling 
mirth. 

fourteen full-page pictures by Orson Lowell. Price $1.50 

THE FOUR-POOLS MYSTERY 

A capital story of mystery and tragedy, the scene lai 
on a Virginia stockfarm. 

Frontispiece by Varian. Price $1.50 


For sale by all dealers. Published by 

THE CENTURY CO. 


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